Tag: Katie Blackburn

Katie Blackburn talks about Jonah Williams’ trade request

Interesting thoughts from the Bengals about Jonah Williams.

The possible trade saga of Cincinnati Bengals offensive tackle Jonah Williams received another entry at the NFL’s spring meetings.

Williams, who requested a trade after the team signed Orlando Brown, was apparently “blindsided” by the move.

Speculation about Williams’ willingness to move to right tackle has dominated the conversation and naturally, it might have an impact on the team’s ability to make his trade request happen.

But team brass remain in a holding pattern on the topic. Executive vice president Katie Blackburn told Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com the following: “I’m not sure he said he doesn’t want to be with the team. These things happen. We’re going to try and get our best team out there. We hear his concerns, but at the end of the day we’ll just have to see where it all plays out and if he’s here we’re going to get our five best guys out there. We’ve obviously looked at our offensive line the last couple of years and really tried to strengthen it and I think we’ve done a great job with that. So we’ve got some good options.”

That’s a fine line the team has to walk for a lot of reasons, including being as fair as possible to Williams and not losing leverage in potential trade talks because of public comments.

The reality is that Williams’ big cap hit on his fully guaranteed fifth-year option isn’t an easy thing to move. And the team has to keep in mind that, barring the arrival of an early-round rookie, the currently-rehabbing La’el Collins is their best option at right tackle next year.

There’s no easy answer for the Bengals, with things likely stuck in a holding pattern until after the draft.

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Bengals’ Katie Blackburn talks about Joe Burrow’s upcoming extension

New comments from the Bengals about Joe Burrow’s extension.

Cincinnati Bengals executive vice president Katie Blackburn inevitably got asked about Joe Burrow’s upcoming extension at the NFL spring meetings.

As expected, Blackburn didn’t have much to say on the matter beyond suggesting both parties have been sworn to secrecy.

“I don’t know the pace but we hope that there’s something that can get done,” Blackburn said, according to Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com. “We sort of said we won’t talk about it much until there’s something to talk about.”

She added this, per the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Kelsey Conway: “At the end of the day, it’s what Joe wants. I think Joe’s got to be happy, and we’ve got to be happy. And hopefully, we can be happy together.”

None of the comments fall under the unexpected column, meaning there isn’t a lot of value in reading further into them than face value.

More telling is the Bengals left their comfort zone on the Orlando Brown contract and slightly pushed bigger cap hits to future years on recent signings, suggesting they’re prepping for big extensions. A Burrow deal might not come until at least April 1, though, provided they want to push the big escrow hit to 2024.

Keep in mind Ja’Marr Chase has hinted Burrow’s extension will help the team keep the weapons around him, too.

While the quotes here are new, there’s little reason not to expect the extension to happen at some point between April and the season opener.

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Bengals’ Katie Blackburn pushed back hard on AFC playoff seeding proposal

The Bengals want owners to vote no on the AFC playoff seeding idea.

Cincinnati Bengals executive vice president Katie Blackburn pushed back hard on the NFL’s proposed solutions to the AFC playoff seeding drama and will seek to whip up “no” votes before Friday’s vote.

The proposal, which means the Bengals could lose out on hosting a playoff game despite being AFC North champions, is a mid-season rule change.

Those hardly ever happen and Blackburn argued to the competition committee that voting on a rule change could introduce bias into the process, as captured by ESPN’s Ben Baby:

Bengals executive vice president Katie Blackburn is on the competition committee, which approved the scenarios Thursday. In a memo obtained by ESPN’s Seth Wickersham, Blackburn urged the committee members to vote against the scenarios. Her reasoning stemmed from the timing of a rule change away from the standard of winning percentages used in this scenario.

“The proper process for making rule change (sic) is in the off-season,” Blackburn wrote. “It is not appropriate to put teams in a position to vote for something that may introduce bias, favor one team over another or impact their own situation when the vote takes place immediately before the playoffs.”

Not only is this sound logic other teams might agree with, the Bengals certainly have right to feel they’re being treated unfairly in the proposal. If they lose to the Ravens in Week 18 and match them again in the wild card round (likely), a coin flip will decide which team gets to host the playoff game despite the Bengals being the AFC North champions (which gives them a harder schedule and a worse draft pick next year, too).

The NFL rulebook says in the event of canceled games, seeding gets determined by winning percentage. The proposal goes against that in an effort to be fair to the Ravens, who with a win on Sunday would sweep the Bengals on the season and have the same number of wins, yet the Bengals are division champions having played one less game.

The proposal needs 24 of 32 owners to pass, with the Bengals attempting to whip up “no” votes, joining them in shooting down a mid-season rule change.

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Bengals’ Katie Blackburn issues statement after player meetings

Cincinnati Bengals EVP Katie Blackburn issued a statement.

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Cincinnati Bengals EVP Katie Blackburn issued a statement Wednesday in the wake of Monday’s non-football meetings featuring players and coaches.

Blackburn issued the following:

“We appreciate our players’ honesty and strength, being vulnerable and sharing their experiences with each other and our coaches. We look forward to continuing to listen and to working together as one connected team to better our society.”

Bengals head coach Zac Taylor used Monday meeting times to address non-football issues. Players called those meets “raw, uncut” and offered that they were eye-opening sessions.

This is the first statement by a specific member of the organization since George Floyd’s death, though a statement offered through the team’s official website originally pledged $250,000 to community initiatives. That came prior to this week’s meetings.

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