Peko and the Defensive Line

In the upcoming season, as you watch the opposing quarterback drop back in the pocket, comfortably set his feet, and scan the field for no less than a minute without feeling any pressure, you may find yourself thinking "Well, at least we spend all our money on the offense and not these terrible defensive linemen."   Sadly, you'll be thinking wrong.

It's not just Peko who has found himself sitting atop a pile of cash (5 years for 29.3 million dollars).  John Thornton will cost us roughly $4.65 million against the cap this year.  Geathers signed a contract last year that promises roughly $6.3 million a year for the next three years (with a bunch of that being front-loaded).  And, of course, Antwan Odom came from Tennessee for a cool 5 years and 29.5 million dollars (if all incentives and such are met).

Of course, the Bengals are betting on future performance from Geathers, Peko, and Odom.  Also, these players are not totally responsible (Odom obviously not at all) for the Bengals atrocious defense the past few years, so perhaps these payments will turn out to be non-retarded.  However, that is one heckuva bet to be making given the minimal evidence the past has provided that any of them will be worth the money.  Thornton, by any measure, is a complete waste of money at this point in his career and could have been cut to save cap space.

Salary data is somewhat confusing and hard to come by easily for other teams, so it is difficult to compare just how little bang for the buck we are assuming the Bengals are getting for their D-Line.  However, here at WDR, we'd be shocked if it turned out this money was somehow spent wisely compared to elite NFL franchises, or even average ones for that matter.

The point is that the handling of personnel and contracts for our defense is yet another example of the complete ineptitude of the Bengals management.  We will delve further into the contracts and statistics in future posts.  But for now, just ask yourself, if you had to decide how to spend 5 million a year on personnel for the Bengals, where would giving that all to Domata Peko have ranked on your list?   125th?  500th?  1,000,000th?