The Cincinnati Bengals would only get a fifth-round compensatory pick if A.J. Green left the team after this season.
Maybe this is getting way ahead of things after the team failed to work out a long-term deal with Green before Wednesday’s deadline, meaning he’ll play 2020 on the tag.
But the scars of the Andrew Whitworth mistake remain — in more ways than one.
Losing Whitworth dramatically set the Bengals back years, to the point they’re still trying to fix things on the field. And from a front office perspective, the Bengals botched the whole ordeal and only got a fifth-round comp pick back in exchange for the loss of one of their best tackles ever.
Thank an obscure rule. Since Whitworth had 10 accrued seasons and was over the age of 30, Cincinnati’s reward for letting him go was capped at the fifth round.
Green is 31 and going into Year 10, as others have observed after the deadline passed:
So if the Bengals lose Green, not only will it be a sour point to lose one of the best wideouts in team history, it won’t net the Bengals much in return.
Granted, the Bengals have changed their tune lately as to how much they care about comp picks. But the simple truth is now that things have escalated to the point of Green playing on a tag, it’d be brutal to then see the era end and get a paltry return.
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