Tag: Duke Tobin

Longtime NFL scout Bill Tobin dies at 83

The Bengals honor Bill Tobin.

Bill Tobin, father of Cincinnati Bengals current director of player personnel Duke Tobin, has passed away at the age of 83.

Tobin had a career in the NFL as an area scout that lasted 50 years and he worked with the Chicago Bears, Indianapolis Colts and Detroit Lions in that time. He’s best known for being involved with drafting many players who were on the 1985 Chicago Bears Super Bowl-winning team.

“He was a true NFL success story,” said Bengals President Mike Brown via Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com. “He was a good person and I considered him a good friend. With Bill, I respected everything he said. I just took it as a given. He had an eye for players and what they would develop into. If he said the guy was a good player, then he was a good player; that’s all I would need to know. We will miss him.”

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Tobin acted as a mentor in the Bengals department as his son was rising in the ranks of the organization. Bengals director of pro scouting Steven Radicevic said having him there to help was important for his career.

“He was one of the best. I was fortunate to start my career in the NFL with him as a mentor,” Radicevic said. “He took me under right away. Showed me how to evaluate players. I watched tape with him early on. He showed me what NFL players looked like. He shared his wisdom of the game and knowledge of it. He showed us his ways. I’ll always be grateful for that.”

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Sam Hubbard played through injury late in the season

Duke Tobin with some thoughts on Sam Hubbard’s effort.

Now that the season is over, it’s a good time for players to recover from some injuries that they suffered over the long season.

Cincinnati Bengals director of player personnel Duke Tobin said Sam Hubbard is doing just that after apparently having surgery on an undisclosed injury he was dealing with late in the year. The defensive end played through the injury and Tobin seemed extremely impressed that he still went out every week to try to give the Bengals a chance at the playoffs.

“He was just a warrior and played through things most human beings wouldn’t play through and gave us the opportunity to go out there with a chance to win,” Tobin said. “That’s what Sam Hubbard is all about.”

The Bengals dealt with major injuries all season, most notably to quarterback Joe Burrow who had to miss most of the second half of the year due to wrist surgery. He apparently wasn’t the only one dealing with an injury that needed to be surgically repaired, but Hubbard powered through.

Cincinnati finished with a winning record this season, but if everyone is able to get healthy and stay healthy next season, it will be a very different team than what the Bengals were playing as late in the season.

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Bengals’ Duke Tobin talks about a Ja’Marr Chase contract extension

Ja’Marr Chase contract extension season has started.

The Cincinnati Bengals sound like a team ready to do whatever it takes to keep Ja’Marr Chase for the long-term.

Speaking with reporters at the Senior Bowl this week, Bengals director of player personnel Duke Tobin made that much clear.

“We like Ja’Marr. He’s in our long-term plans. He’s a high-level player in this league. And we want to keep those kinds of players on our team,” Tobin said, according to Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com. “I want Tee Higgins back. Everyone on our team would like Tee Higgins back. There’s a pie and there are things we can do and can’t do because of it. We’ll see.”

There’s not much reading between the lines necessary here, considering Tobin is normally pretty secretive about the team’s intentions. But this one is so obvious, why try to hide it?

The task is easier said than done when it comes to an extension, of course. The front office has to think about an extension or franchise tag for Tee Higgins, while Chase himself has said he wants to wait on names around the league such as Justin Jefferson.

But until further notice, most Chase questions directed at the Bengals will have very similar answers.

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Bengals’ Duke Tobin comments on Tee Higgins franchise tag rumors and speculation

Duke Tobin speaks on possibly franchise tagging Tee Higgins.

The Cincinnati Bengals have a tough call to make with wide receiver Tee Higgins this offseason.

Higgins, slated to be a free agent, is an obvious franchise tag candidate after player and team couldn’t agree to a long-term extension last offseason.

And while it’s easy to dismiss the whole situation as an obvious tag-and-forget situation, Bengals director of player personnel Duke Tobin isn’t exactly ready to confirm that it will happen.

Here’s what Tobin told Kelsey Conway of the Cincinnati Enquirer on that topic during an interview at the Senior Bowl:

He’s not under contract now so we’re going to have to work through how to do that and if it’s possible and we’ll have to go through the gymnastics of that. So it’s a different scenario than it was last year. Trading a high-level player that’s under contract just because the future might demand it, that’s never really on my mind. We’ll see what happens this year. I want Tee Higgins back. Everyone on our team would like to have Tee Higgins back. Again, there’s one pie and how big of a slice that takes and what else we can’t do because of it, we’ll have to determine, and we’ll see.

The vague reply isn’t a shocker from Tobin, who outside of his “get your own” comments about Higgins last year in response to illogical trade rumors, usually keeps a lid on things.

Cincinnati can place a tag on Higgins from February 5 to March 20, which will cost the team roughly $21.7 million of its ample cap space. Otherwise, he’ll head to free agency.

Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow has commented that he discussed the long-term plan with the team before signing his own major extension, which presumably includes plans for Higgins. Beyond the price tag though, Tobin and Co. will have to look at factors such as Higgins’ injury history and the fact they drafted multiple receivers last year, among others.

If the Bengals do tag Higgins, it’s extremely doubtful they do a tag-and-trade scenario.

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2023 NFL GM rankings: The 5 best and 5 worst execs, starring Howie Roseman

Some of the guys on this list have built budding dynasties. Others just ruin their team’s hopes to contend.

Every star-studded Super Bowl contender has a mastermind pulling all the right strings behind the scenes. Without a quality general manager, most great, even good, teams never even launch off the ground.

And a quality GM is responsible for everything. They spend months scouting comprehensive draft classes. They have to massage their franchise’s salary cap when it comes time to make difficult financial choices. Even smaller decisions, like offseason training programs and equipment at the team’s facilities, are up to them. If we’re being forthright, a quality NFL GM has their fingerprints everywhere.

This isn’t necessarily a good thing for everyone.

Some GMs aren’t up to the task of having every important football decision come across their desk. They seemingly run their team like a 15-year-old kid playing Madden’s franchise mode who simulates all the smaller but essential details. And then it’s no wonder when their squads get obliterated every time they play a game.

For The Win’s 2023 preseason GM rankings centers on the folks who aren’t overwhelmed when they read one contract page on Over The Cap. It also highlights the people slowly but surely driving their franchises into the ground. After all, we have to see both sides of the coin.

MORE NFL PRESEASON:

Bengals’ Duke Tobin comments on the Joe Burrow extension situation

More fun comments from Duke Tobin of the Bengals.

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Cincinnati Bengals director of player personnel Duke Tobin doesn’t offer much in public about the team’s dealings.

That adds weight to his comments when he says, for example, that the team won’t trade wideout Tee Higgins.

It also adds weight when he so openly talks about the upcoming extension for Joe Burrow.

Appearing on Pat McAfee’s show, Tobin admitted Burrow’s extension will be a “sizable amount of money” and offered a ton of praise for executive vice president Katie Blackburn’s leading role in this (and all contractual and cap) matters.

“Katie is on top of that one,” Tobin said. “She’s the one that keeps us on track with the salary cap, not only for this year, but for future years. Everything we do, we are looking now, but these dollars count. If you aren’t counting them this year, you are counting them next year or the year after. Every dollar that goes out counts.”

True indeed, Burrow’s extension projects to make him the league’s highest-paid player. Creative cap-based ideas that would position the Bengals as trailblazers around the league have been floated, too.

As always, there’s little concern from the Bengals about the situation despite the massive numbers sure to come.

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Duke Tobin latest to stay quiet about Jonah Williams trade speculation

The Bengals aren’t saying much about the Jonah Williams trade speculation.

Like Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor before him, team director of player personnel Duke Tobin didn’t have much to say on the Jonah Williams trade topic.

Speaking with reporters at his annual pre-draft presser, Tobin wouldn’t go into much detail about the reported trade request from their former left tackle.

“I don’t have any updates on Jonah,” Tobin said. “He’s a member of our team. He’s a valued member of our team. If that changes, you guys will be the first to know.”

Williams reportedly requested the trade after the Bengals unexpectedly landed Orlando Brown Jr. in free agency. Taylor has said he expects Williams to come in and compete at right tackle.

Like the overall theme of Tobin’s media session, he kept an anything-can-happen vibe to the Williams topic while also firmly walking the tightrope between being informative and not giving up too much information for other teams to use.

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Bengals’ Duke Tobin talks extensions for Joe Burrow and others before draft

Duke Tobin discussed how the looming extensions might impact draft plans.

Cincinnati Bengals director of player personnel Duke Tobin largely kept to the organization’s expected talking points while discussing extensions before the 2023 NFL draft.

Asked about the broad extension situations for names like Joe Burrow, Tee Higgins and Logan Wilson, Tobin said those on the to-do list don’t impact the draft at all.

“You can’t predict when and if they’ll get done,” Tobin said, according to The Athletic’s Jay Morrison. “We’re working to try to have as many good players on our football team as we can and try to keep them as long as we can — the ones that are producing and really fit well here. We’re trying like heck to get those guys extended, renegotiated.

As Morrison went on to note, extensions by the team haven’t really happened before the calendar turns to May over the course of the last decade.

Meaning, Tobin’s talking points and the lack of extensions so far aren’t surprising at all.

While those extensions won’t impact the draft, what might is the team looking one year ahead again like they did with the pick of Dax Hill last year. Seeing Tyler Boyd doesn’t have an extension yet could mean the team looks at slot wideout prospects such as a certain UC Bearcats player.

But for now, no news on Burrow, Higgins and Wilson, is business as usual.

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Duke Tobin makes it clear Bengals will use best-player-available strategy

It’s going to be business as usual for Duke Tobin and the Bengals in the first round.

Cincinnati Bengals director of player personnel Duke Tobin’s comments from his pre-draft presser won’t shock seasoned fans.

In short, he doesn’t have much to say about trades, extensions or draft picks — everything is on the table and they’re open to everything.

No, really. The Bengals would be foolish to rule anything out right now and even more foolish to tip their hand publicly. Tobin admitted, for example, that all front offices around the NFL are putting out trade feelers over phone calls. That doesn’t mean the team will trade on draft day, but the conversations have been there.

Likewise, Tobin made it clear they’re sticking with their best-player-available approach:

“If we get an opportunity to add a young guy, we’re not going to turn it down. We don’t eliminate any position in the draft. If you start doing that you run out of players. And so we’re going look at every position and what’s available. And if the best guy available is a tight end, we’ll probably go that route.”

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Interesting there is the “probably,” perhaps meaning tight end doesn’t have to be the play. But reading too much into a quick-hitting chat is a dangerous game.

Tobin added this, noting that specialists and quarterbacks — for obvious reasons — are the only things really eliminated from the first-round topic: “We’re open to any position that presents itself is they’re the best player available. I do probably eliminate specialists from that first-round category, but other than that, it’s hard to eliminate and I don’t think we’ll be taking a quarterback up there but everything else is wide open.”

With the Bengals, this is why, besides quarterback and specialists, it’s really hard to scoff at any mock draft idea. The team’s handful of signings that addressed needs reinforces the idea Tobin and Co. could select pretty much any position in the opening round.

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Bengals’ Duke Tobin ranks highly in new NFL general manager rankings

A nice honor for Duke Tobin of the Bengals.

Cincinnati Bengals de-factor general manager Duke Tobin emerges looking great in a fresh ranking of general managers around the NFL.

While the Bengals haven’t officially given out the title despite national outcry about it, Tobin stands in the role and gets the spot on leaguewide rankings for the team.

And it’s quite the incredible ranking for Tobin this offseason, with NFL.com’s Gregg Rosenthal putting him in third overall place:

Longtime NFL analyst Solomon Wilcots once said of Marvin Lewis that the coach “raised the Titanic” during his time in Cincinnati. That’s partly why Tobin gets extra credit for building two different Bengals eras with top-shelf rosters. Having Joe Burrow instead of Andy Dalton atop the quarterback depth chart should help the latest iteration last. The team has a strong recent record with targeted free-agent strikes (Chidobe Awuzie, D.J. Reader), and it was smart not to overspend when some of their own players like Hayden Hurst and Vonn Bell got paid too much elsewhere. Tobin used that extra money to find value with tackle Orlando Brown Jr. at the top of the market and safety Nick Scott and tight end Irv Smith Jr. as worthwhile low-cost gambles. Cincinnati’s offensive line overhaul last offseason mostly worked, but I love that Tobin didn’t stand pat. There is strong cohesion between Tobin and Zac Taylor’s coaching staff, which develops rookies like cornerback Cam Taylor-Britt before giving them playing time.

Tobin finishes third behind only Howie Roseman of the Philadelphia Eagles and Brett Veach of the Kansas City Chiefs.

That’s great company for Tobin, who took the layup that was picking Joe Burrow and then superbly built around the rookie quarterback contract to the tune of a Super Bowl appearance and coming within a few plays of another.

Most impressive of all, Tobin has done so while matching the vision of head coach Zac Taylor, re-building the program to his liking over the last few years.

Tobin will remain in this spot, if not climb higher, provided he can keep fielding a contender-worthy roster after Joe Burrow gets his massive extension.

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