Musical Chairs With Money

Bengals start slowly in keeping their seat in free agency

NFL free agency is musical chairs with money. Lose a guy, find a guy, but whatever you do, don’t be the team left standing when the hype stops.

In one afternoon Monday, the Bengals re-signed LB Germaine Pratt, causing local experts to praise the Men for their devotion to “continuity.’’ An hour later, the Bengals lost both their starting safeties, Vonn Bell and Jessie Bates, to other teams. Apparently, continuity is subject to varying definitions.

Expect them also to sacrifice Eli Apple and Hayden Hurst on the altar of continuity.

What does it mean? Beats me. Pittsburgh lost a very good young corner (Cam Sutton) Monday, and found a pretty good old one, Patrick Peterson. Each will get paid wheelbarrows full of Benjamins. Will the Stillers be better for it? No one knows. Everyone thinks they know.

I suppose the money masters at PayJoe Stadium will find another safety, so that what Bengals.com called “The Dax Hill Era’’ can commence with someone besides, well, Dax Hill.

(How do we mark the debut of such an Era? Party hats, circus clowns, a pony?)

Hill played 131 snaps as a rookie last year, half of them in one game, as a slot corner v. Tampa.

Cincinnati will sign someone, probably, though Mike Brown has a history of yawning at safeties. Name the last Bengals safety to be a Pro Bowler, win the coveted George Iloka Trophy.

(It was Reggie Nelson in 2015. Nelson was dealt to the Oakland Raiders immediately afterward.)

Before Nelson, David Fulcher was a Pro Bowler, in ‘88 and ‘89. Before Fulcher, I don’t think the Bengals had any safeties.

The point is (possibly) that unless you’re talking quarterbacks, free agency is, as Bum Phillips might say, a lotta hat and no cattle. It’s just another way to redistribute wealth. It does that better than a tax cut for rich people. That doesn’t stop the league from getting fans obsessed with it.

I’m on the elliptical machine at Planet Struggling Fitness Monday when, shocker, I see on ESPN four heads at a table, talking free agency. It’s always amazing to me that people, lots of people, would rather watch the Combine or the draft than actual sporting events. MLB is close to returning, the World Baseball Classic is wonderful (and neglected), MLS has already returned. March Madness is about to explode, the NBA postseason looms. Yet here we are on a Monday afternoon, watching ESPN’s Adam Schefter ditch a live roundtable discussion to take a phone call.

What?

Yeah. I’d like to say it was a first, but knowing Schefter a little and the league a lot, I’d venture to say it wasn’t. What happened next might have been, though. Might have been a first. When Schefter up and left with nary an Excuse Me, the camera didn’t stick with the talkers at the table. It followed Schefter offstage left, to catch him as he. . . talked on the phone!

Upon Schefter’s return, I half expected him to announce Aaron Rodgers had just signed with Manchester United. He hadn’t.

The NFL cruises seamlessly from the season to the Combine! to Free Agency Week! to pre-Draft! to Draft!, followed by a brief pause to allow coaches to have a life, such as it is. Enjoy those three days on Hilton Head, men. That 8-year-old over there, making a sand castle and kicking his little sister? That’s your son.

We watch every laborious step of the NFL process. Please help me understand this phenomenon. Tell me why melodrama (Rodgers lives in a cave for four nights! We’re there live!) is more interesting than the real thing.

I’m thinking it’s chicken and egg. But who’s the wings and who’s the omelet? Is the offseason so vital to fans because ESPN tells them it is? Or are fans telling ESPN this is what they want to watch?

Explain.

Meantime, we’re still in what the NFL calls “legal tampering’’ time. Is that like “illegal honesty’’? Alternative facts, maybe. The legal honesty period begins Wednesday, when players can actually sign the deals they agreed to Monday and today. Think of how great that’ll be! Melodrama all over the studio! Schefter will need three phones.

Now, then. . .

THE U-S-A, U-S-A redeems itself after its embarrassing L to Mexico by pounding poor Canada in the World Baseball Classic, itself a classic example of an event looking for context.

Unlike the World Cup, its teams aren’t always a nation’s best players. Especially when that nation is us. MLB owners don’t like the WBC; managers hate it. At least the managers who have donated pitchers to the cause.

In some countries, the WBC is the World Series. Watching Latino clubs play each other can be breathtaking. (And loud. Very loud.) In our country, watching our team beat Canada isn’t as compelling as watching Adam Schefter talk on his phone.

Prepping pitchers for Opening Day is far more significant than putting their country in a position to win games in the WBC. NY Times:

That often-contradictory mandate played out in full, excruciating view on Sunday. (USA manager Mark) DeRosa kept (Brady) Singer in for 53 pitches, even as the game slipped away, to build up his pitch count for the Royals. He used one reliever, Colorado’s Daniel Bard, for 33 pitches as he tried to nurse Bard through the eighth inning. Yet two others (Kendall Graveman of the White Sox and Devin Williams of Milwaukee) threw just six pitches combined, because they cannot work in multiple innings.

There’s no perfect solution to this. Surely, not halting a major-league season for a fortnight in July to play it. Interrupting the blooming of spring is bad enough.

December, maybe? January? A nation mostly starved for warmth might get a kick out of watching baseball at Christmas, same as some of us watch golf from Pebble Beach and Phoenix in January and February.

Regardless, the way the World Baseball Classic is now is not telling us who has the best baseball team in the world.

Da-na-na-na-Dun-daa-na-na. . .

USA Today predicts Huggs will retire after WVU loses in the Madness:

First he’ll lose to Maryland in the first round, then he’ll decide he’s sick of all these soft players and the parents who coddle them. Huggins has been outspoken about his dislike of the transfer portal, one-time transfer waivers and NIL deals. By saying good riddance to all of this, he and his matching sweatsuits can live in peace. 

I recall Huggins late in his tenure at UC saying he’d retire sooner than later. That didn’t happen. But this prediction makes some sense. He’s too old to be begging 18-year-olds to play for him and too unwilling to accept their entitlement, which has only been enhanced by NIL and the portal. Could you blame him?

Plus, every time the man takes the court, I fear for his health. Time to take that well-deserved gold watch.

A FEW LIKES, if you’re betting people. I like a veteran Memphis club giving 2.5 to Fla. Atlantic. Tigers were underseeded. Also like Vermont to cover v. Marquette. Catamounts have won 15 in a row, are veterans and play efficient offense. Not many turnovers there. Grab the 10.5 now before it goes even lower.

TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . This is Grade-A-plus Keef raunch. Ain’ no hangin’ mattuh. Off Beggar’s Banquet, an album my son really loves and I really don’t. Who’s right, Mobsters?