By now, it wasn’t too much of a shock that the Cincinnati Bengals released running back Giovani Bernard on Wednesday.
The move creates some notable cap space and frees up the depth chart for a younger player like Trayveon Williams. Bernard’s contract was too big, something made clear by the rumors of teams calling the Bengals about a trade.
What we didn’t know was that it was Bernard who asked for his release.
According to Mike Garafolo of NFL Network, the Bengals asked him to take a pay cut two weeks into free agency. Clearly, that didn’t happen, so Bernard asked for a split.
Seeing as we’ve listed Bernard as a cut candidate since last winter thanks to his cap hit, it paints the Bengals in a poor light that they waited until two weeks after free agency opened to ask one of their loudest, best leaders to take a pay cut or ultimatley leave the team.
Even so, Bernard shouldn’t have too tough of a time finding a new home. But the Bengals could have done better by him with a cut before free agency started.
