ESPN’s Mina Kimes roasts the Bengals with a harsh truth where it should hurt them the most
Mina Kimes tears the Bengals a new one, and she’s right.
Joe Burrow has been in the news regarding his football future, and with the Cincinnati Bengals eliminated from playoff contention for the third consecutive season, that conversation will only get louder with him at the forefront.
But ESPN’s Mina Kimes isn’t concerned about Burrow when it comes to the Bengals; rather, the people who run the club from the top.
“If I’m Joe [Burrow] and getting back to the Super Bowl matters. . .I need to see some improvement on this defense next year,” Kimes said on First Take. “And we don’t talk about this front office and criticize them the way we should because we just write it off as they’re the Bengals, they do things a different way, they’re cheap.
“We should be criticizing them and holding their feet to the fire. If this was a bigger market team, people would be calling for wide-scale change in the front office. That’s where I see the biggest flaws on this team, and frankly, Joe Burrow should be calling them out.”
Mina Kimes is absolutely right to call out the Bengals’ front office
It’s been a troubling three years since Cincinnati lost the AFC Championship Game at the start of 2023. On top of Burrow suffering two major injuries playing behind an offensive line that has only recently stabilized, the Bengals’ defense has dropped off dramatically in an effort to get younger and cheaper.
The overall talent level on the roster has decreased despite retaining Burrow, along with wide receivers Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins. It hasn’t mattered whether or not Burrow has been healthy, the team around the quarterback position hasn’t been good enough.
And that rests squarely on the shoulders of the front office, not Burrow.
“It’s not Joe Burrow’s job to be the GM of the Cincinnati Bengals,” Kimes said.
Bengals need to correct their course soon
Burrow championed for his receivers to get paid, but extending Chase and Higgins was not the alternative to fielding a competent roster. Cincinnati had the power to pay its receivers in a timely manner and to structure those deals to free up salary cap space to build out the rest of the team.
That’s not what occurred. Chase and Higgins’ deals featured front-loaded cap hits, which limited how flexible the front office could be in adding other pieces to the roster.
This was their choice, as was drafting a plethora of underwhelming defensive players over the last few years to re-tool that side of the ball.
And as Kimes wisely states, the front office deserves heavy criticism no matter if they work in Cincinnati or in a larger market like New York or Los Angeles.
Burrow’s locked in with the Bengals through the 2029 season and has given no real inclination he wants out, but if his championship aspirations are to be matched by the team, it needs to fix the way it builds around him and take this kind of criticism to heart.
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