THE NFL BANISHMENT : Cincinnati Bengals’ Banishment from 2024 Window due …..
In their running back room, the Cincinnati Bengals are considering the big picture.
Now that the Cincinnati Bengals have finally offloaded the bloated salary of high-profile running back Joe Mixon, they have officially joined the rest of the league running the tandem running back model. Mixon will arguably go down as one of the most accomplished running back in the history of Cincinnati football but in the end, his lack of explosivity completely dismantled his value to the franchise and the team decided to go on a lower risk trajectory moving in the backfield moving forward.
Cincinnati Bengals New Tandem Running Back Approach
The Bengals team has a history of resisting change, even after the NFL as a whole adopted the dual running back approach. Out of the Cincinnati backfield, Mixon was just the most recent in a long line of gifted breadwinners to receive the majority of the carries. The fact that Cincinnati hasn’t had a standout running game in recent memory shouldn’t come as a surprise.
eam’s ownership has a tendency to be painfully stubborn, not even they could avoid the absolute deterioration of running back contracts that has happened over the past five years. While the position used to be the focal point of a team in the National Football League, it is arguably the least valued position on the entire field at this point.
Almost in tandem with the announcement that Mixon had been traded to the Houston Texans for a negligible seventh round pick was the news that Cincinnati had signed former Indianapolis Colts backup running back Zack Moss. Moss has been a perfectly adequate running back over the course of his five-year career after being drafted in the third round out of Utah in 2020 by racking up 2,000 rushing yards and 14 touchdowns over that span.
Although Moss was sufficient, the team decided not to spend all of its money on a single running back this year and will instead start Chase Brown, a fifth-round pick from the previous year. After being chosen out of Illinois, Brown has gained recognition for his ability to make big plays and his rapid burst through the defense. Last season, Brown managed to run for 179 rushing yards on 44 caries for a score, even though he was Mixon’s backup. Thanks to Cincinnati’s subpar offensive line, that works out to a decent 4.1 yards per carry on average.
One of the most widely unobserved details being thrown this offseason is the structure of Moss’ contract heading into next season. While Moss was signed to a two-year deal worth $8 million, he has a tremendously small salary cap and guaranteed quantity available to him in his first year. In 2024, Moss will account for less that $3 million against the Cincinnati salary cap with all of that money being guaranteed once he makes the roster next season.
In typical conservative Cincinnati fashion, they built an option to terminate after Moss’ first season with a modest penalty of $1.5 million. If you read between the lines, that means that Moss is likely only going to be in Cincinnati for one season. Another interesting point is that Moss and Brown are of similar builds and running styles. Typically, in a tandem situation, you want one power back and one speed back to help change the pace and throw off the tempo of the defense.
