[jwplayer aBSfyrKD-ThvAeFxT]
Fans of the Cincinnati Bengals didn’t go into the offseason expecting the team to spend north of $100 million on some of the market’s biggest names.
But current Bengals players seemed to have an idea.
Safety Jessie Bates, for example, seemed to know something was going on based on conversations he had with coaches before leaving the building after the season.
“I was one of the last guys to have a conversation with Coach Lou and we had a great conversation for about 20 minutes,” Bates said, according to Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com. “I kind of knew we were going to get some help in here as far bringing in some new guys. They were preaching about getting younger and we did.”
Sam Hubbard added the following: “I knew we were going to get some guys just from what I had been told and I had no reason to think they weren’t telling the truth.”
Maybe Bates and Hubbard didn’t know the team was about to make D.J. Read the NFL’s highest-paid nose tackle (by definition, at least). But they perhaps understood that several new defensive starters would arrive via free agency and this wouldn’t be one of those same-old offseasons where the Bengals only relied on the draft to add talent.
This idea players knew changes for the better were coming aligns nicely with the idea the team kept rallying and fighting for Zac Taylor down the stretch for good reason.
And it’s hard to hate the idea this all creates — players have got to be just as happy as the fans that the Bengals are performing differently to really jump start a new era.
[vertical-gallery id=30319]