A.J. Green is entering the final season of a four-year, $60MM contract. He is also coming off another injury-shortened slate, with a toe malady cutting it short. Bengals owner Mike Brown said earlier this year he would be interested in Green staying in Cincinnati on another deal. Green expressed the same sentiment over the weekend.
“Cincinnati is home for me,” Green said, via FOX 19 in Cincinnati (video link). “I’ve been here nine years. This is home as much as South Carolina. All I know is Cincinnati. I can’t see myself playing anywhere else or playing in a different city. Hopefully I can be here for a couple more years, so we’ll see on that part.”
Green is entering his age-31 season and has missed 13 games over the past three years, but the seven-time Pro Bowl wide receiver has proven to be one of the best players in Bengals history. The Bengals extended two other cornerstones last year, in Geno Atkins and Carlos Dunlap, and Brown called the wideout a “proven commodity” earlier this year. No known talks have commenced between Green and Bengals. The receiver also said, via FOX 19, he has been cleared from the toe surgery he underwent in December. It is not certain if he will participate in Cincinnati’s minicamp next week.
Here is the latest from the North divisions:
- During the 2018 Khalil Mack pursuit, Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy began calling their Raiders counterparts (Reggie McKenzie and Jon Gruden) about the All-Pro edge defender once training camp began last year. But the Bears’ prevailing thought as of late July 2018 was, in the words of player personnel director Josh Lucas, “What are we doing? They’re not going to trade this guy,” Lucas said (via J.J. Stankevitz of NBC Sports Chicago). But shortly before Chicago’s final preseason game — which occurred a day after the Aaron Donald extension, and as the Raiders’ patience with Mack was running out — Bears brass were told to submit their best offer. That proposal (a package fronted by two first-round picks and a third-rounder) won out. “I think we had an advantage because they wanted him to get out of the AFC, so being an NFC team, I think we had a pretty good chance,” Lucas said. “I don’t think the Raiders thought we were going to be any good last year, so they wanted our first-round pick. So I think that played a part of it.“
- After Adrian Amos and Ha Ha Clinton-Dix started the 2018 season as Bears and Packers safeties, the respective back-line defenders switched cities this year. Clearly on a roll at the Bears100 Celebration this week, Lucas added (via Stankevitz, on Twitter) the Bears consistently graded Clinton-Dix as superior to Amos. Pro Football Focus would disagree with the Bears’ assessment, particularly in 2017 (when the site gave Amos a 90.9 grade and Clinton-Dix a 71.5 mark). The Bears also landed Clinton-Dix for far cheaper (one year, $3MM) than the deal the Packers gave Amos (four years, $36MM), pointing to other teams sharing PFF’s view.
- Sean Davis switched agents in advance of his contract year, moving from MBK sports management to Drew Rosenhaus, the safety confirmed (via Ray Fittipaldo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). Davis said no extension talks have occurred between he and the Steelers and noted the safety market’s 2019 explosion as a reason he may bet on himself this season. “I just felt like I needed a change,” Davis said, via Fittipaldo, of switching from Eugene Lee to Rosenhaus. “Drew is a top agent, man. … The safety market went up this year. That puts a little more pressure on me to get the job done and to compete for those contracts.” After faring better as a free safety than he did at the strong safety spot in 2017, Davis will remain there this season.
Not sure how your grading system works but Amos has next to zero ball skills and his pitiful low career interceptions prove this. Tackling he is better but if you are counting on your safety to make a lot of tackles your defense is in trouble but a safety should get interceptions
Vic Fangio earned a reputation as one of the best defensive minded coaches because he can figure out ways to get full potential from marginal players. Going to be interesting to see how the new look secondary performs for the Bears.
Wait til you see HaHa is game action and you’ll see why he’s not in GB anymore
He will benefit by being surrounded by great players, the same way Amos did. Now you’ll see the real Amos. Good tackler. That’s it.
Using interceptions is so faulty. Good DBs dont even get thrown at because they cover their man so well. And it’s not even their system.
That is corners not safeties they literally play in the middle of the field but nice try
Lol. You dont even know what PFF is in 2019. You should probably stop now since you clearly dont know how to evaluate. Interceptions as the sole basis for quality lol like using drops for WRs
haha’s coverage skills are a huge weakness… that is why he is not in GB anymore… and that will annoy the bears this season on many occasions… sometimes he would also give up on plays… you would think he would play better since he was in a contract year last year… but nope…. and you may hope that the bears defense will make him better… but the packers improved there defense with much more then just amos……amos is much more refined, more disciplined, and a much better teammate
Packers defense is trash compared to the Bears. Clinton-Dix’s experience and ball skills makes him a better fit.
At the time of the Mack trade, I was thinking the same thing. I was hoping, between Dallas & Chicago, their combined records would be .500. So maybe I’d get a #15 and a #17. I still like the trades, but I’d have liked it a lot more with better picks.
Go home AJ, you’re drunk.
Why on earth anyone with any level of attaining personal and professional sports accomplishments and an inner drive to play the game would want to stay with a perennial loser is just complacency at its highest level, and not just him, but the whole franchise. Just saying what he said, that he never wants to play anywhere else, makes the NFLPA cringe…and send his agent reaching for his ‘scrips.
He, and the front office just look at 9-7 and 8-8 as some sort of accomplishments, which is also mindnumbing.
At least they are consistent, I guess, is the glossed over way of approaching it?
Serious question time: Do Bengals fans even put the “This is our year” out there anymore, or have they too, been gaslit into sucktitide?
You want the NFL to turn into the NBA where everyone just tries to get to a big market and team up with a few buddies? I don’t…
Perennial loser is funny. 8 seasons in and made playoffs 5x. Record since he and Dalton were drafted is 71-55-2. Not the Patriots for sure but better than 2/3 of the league.
I’d rather have a player that wanted to make his current team a contender, rather than someone who only wants to join a team that is already a champion.
It’s a whole different level of satisfaction knowing that you helped turn a team around, rather than just joining the best team in the league and riding on their coattails.
Eddie Jackson and HaHa compliment each other well. Jackson is great at coverage so that should cover up some of HaHa’s coverage fails. Pagano also likes to take risks with his safeties on blitzes so that could work well for him.
I love how Pace went all in on Mack. He gets some grief for the return but if you want the best ya gotta pay for it. Ballsy move.