I doubt that he's going to go to Cincy to be honest. To the Packers he has some real value. Especially if they really see themselves as a Super Bowl contender. You don't throw away your backup plan at QB for a pick next year. As far as the Bengals are concerned, I think they'd rather tank the season and get their picks and move on. I don't think they see this as a year where they've got much of a shot anyway.
I see every word of that exactly the same way.
They do not see themselves as being in a make or break, go big or go home, all or nothing position
at this stage, and perhaps more importantly they seem to recognize that they're a lot more than one player away in the short term. They've put themselves in a very unstable situation over the last few years, with a number of really reckless salary cap decisions that seem to have been more impulsive and reactive than strategic. Their roster is very top-heavy in terms of salary cap, and those cap numbers are first and foremost in their minds right now in any personnel decisions.
Over the next few years, roughly 40% of their salary cap is allocated to Burrow, Hendrickson, Higgins, and Stewart - who a lot of people feel was a "project pick" they can not afford in the short and intermediate term. In short, they're arguably in a "reload" stage, in which case you do not want to **** away draft picks for 1 year of a backup quarterback who isn't going to get you any closer to winning the Super Bowl next February than the backup you already have on staff.
This is just a guess though. I have no idea what's churning in their heads down there. Thirteen Below can probably tell us more about it. He at least lives close enough he can smell the rubber burning when the Bengals brain trust is at work.
I think you summed it up rather concisely. Frankly, I'm not sure anyone down here knows what the "brain trust" is "thinking", including and perhaps especially the so-called brain trust. The Bengals' front office seems to work exponentially differently than the Gutekunst staff, and it's really difficult to switch from "Packer logic" to "Bengals way of thinking".
I'm not plugged in down here with anyone really close to the inside, but what I'm hearing from people who are is that they're not as desperate as Packer fans would like to think. They are confident going forward with Browning (confident anyway that he can do what they need a backup to do during these next few months) and do not see Willis as a significantly better option than Browning - at least, not significantly enough to pay an exorbitant price in terms of draft capital.
Word down here is that they were not looking for a
replacement for Burrow, just someone who can keep them competitive and within range of a playoff run when Burrow comes back. Why **** away a Day Two and a Day Three pick when you alresdy have exactly that guy on the payroll?
Now... I don't know this, but what I've gathered from radio shows, anonymous sources who have proven credible, podcasts, etc, is that the inquiry into Willis was nothing more than testing the waters just in case - just trying to get a feel for whether he was "gettable"; simply due diligence.
It's been reported by several sources (and I can't attest to their credibility at all), that when Duke Tobin made the tentative preliminary offer over the telephone, Gutekunst literally laughed out loud. And my further understanding is that there were no more phone calls about Willis; the Bengals just read the rooom and scrolled down to the next quarterback who was stockpiled on Green Bay's roster and grabbed Clifford.
It may be that we cheeseheads have an unrealistic assessment of Malik's value on the trade market. I wouldn't be shocked if someone else might go a 2nd rounder, but I don't think it will be the Bengals.
