Around the league, the average year 1 cap hit for free agent contracts was 50.5% of their new APY.
The Bengals did it at an 80.9% rate.
Let's say they were still on the conservative side but not at the extreme like they currently are. Let's say they were at the 55% mark.
They would have saved $12.17M on this year's cap.
Sure, that $12M would still need to be accounted for in future years, but that's just $6M per year and the Bengals have a projected $100M in cap space in 2027.
That extra $12M in cap space could have netted two more quality starters on defense.
$12m is 4% of the current cap.
$6M next year is just 1.8% of next year's projected cap.
The final years $6M would then be 1.7% of that year's projected cap.
4% now vs 3.5% in future years.
And that's the final tweet on how the Bengals structure contracts and how it limits them.
“Stop expecting the truth to change minds…Because it just doesn’t. The only thing that’s going to change their minds, is when the cost of the lie becomes heavier than the comfort it brings. “
In 2007, Curt Cignetti joined Nick Saban's first staff at Alabama. He served as the WRs coach and recruiting coordinator. During his time with Saban, the Crimson Tide had a 12–0 regular season in 2008 and a 14–0 national championship season in 2009. Alabama won 29 consecutive regular-season games. Cignetti played a role in recruiting and developing key players, like Julio Jones, Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram, and linebacker Dont'a Hightower. The 2008 recruiting class featured six future first-round NFL draft selections.
Cignetti emphasizes tempo, physicality, and discipline. His practices are designed to be "fast, physical, and relentless" while remaining smart, disciplined, and poised. He frequently frames execution as "one play at a time," with each snap treated independently to build consistency over the course of a game.
What he has done at Indiana has been described as a deliberate culture reset—professionalism, accountability, and a "winning mindset"—paired with a higher practice tempo and tighter organization. Cignetti has also said he prefers efficiency over sheer volume in practice, using fewer of the allowable sessions or hours and focusing on pace and organization to simulate game pressure.
Analysts often link Cignetti's approach to his tenure on Nick Saban's Alabama staff, particularly regarding evaluation, roster construction, and sustaining culture through clear expectations. Saban said Indiana's rapid turnaround reflected Cignetti's evaluation and culture work amid frequent roster changes, adding that Cignetti "has done a really good job as a head coach."
His public tone and on-field identity are unapologetically aggressive, noting his "attack" ethos and unwillingness to "play nice. Earlier national profiles also traced how his methods and messaging traveled from prior stops to Indiana as part of the program's turnaround.
Former players and coaches have described Cignetti as an exacting teacher and an intensely focused preparer, sometimes calling him a "cocky nerd" for his combination of blunt candor and studied approach to the job. He is known for marathon film sessions in which he repeatedly rewound plays to critique players' footwork and assignments and for occasionally stepping into drills himself when quarterbacks failed to execute a rep, reinforcing his standards for precision and preparation. He prefers concise, high-tempo practices that typically last about 90 minutes, emphasizing efficiency over volume, and he stresses eliminating "self-imposed limitations" while delivering feedback that players have characterized as direct yet constructive.
“When we're in this country and you're murdered for your political beliefs, that is as low as this country can get.”
Dave Portnoy says Charlie Kirk’s assassination is “one of the darkest days in American history."
It’s nearly whole new team @GoBearcatsMBB so it will be an interesting experiment. But I love what they’ve done with roster. Welcome to the new normal in college basketball. Respectfully, Jizzle James, who had some great Bearcat moments, was far too inconsistent to be the “face” in a league as good as @Big12Conference. Certainly wish him well.
There are times, however, and this is one of them, when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? If making love might be fatal and if a cool spring breeze on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison right in front of your eyes, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation.