HEADLINES

Emmanuel Lamur

Bengals Re-Sign Emmanuel Lamur

April 8th, 2015 at 2:47pm CST by Luke Adams

Linebacker Emmanuel Lamur has officially signed his one-year contract tender and will return to Cincinnati for the 2015 season, according to Paul Dehner Jr. of the Cincinnati Enquirer (Twitter link). Lamur, who received a second-round RFA tender from the Bengals, will be in line for a $2.356MM salary.

In over 900 defensive snaps for the Bengals last season, Lamur graded as a below-average player in pass coverage, run defense, and as a pass rusher, per Pro Football Focus (subscription required), which ranked him 39th out of 40 qualified 4-3 outside linebackers. However, the team clearly viewed the 25-year-old’s performance more favorably, with his 97 tackles and two interceptions earning him more than just the low-end RFA tender.

If Lamur, who went undrafted out of Kansas State, had received that low-end RFA offer, which doesn’t come with any draft pick compensation, he may have drawn interest from rival suitors. However, because the Bengals assigned him the $2.356MM tender, any team interested in signing Lamur would’ve had to surrender a second-round pick to land him, which likely diminished any outside interest.

Lamur had been the only Bengals’ restricted free agent who remained unsigned.

Kearse, Lamur Receive RFA Tenders

March 6th, 2015 at 8:14am CST by Luke Adams

A pair of potential restricted free agents have received one-year contract tenders at the second-round level, according to Field Yates of ESPN.com, who reports (via Twitter) that the Seahawks have tendered wide receiver Jermaine Kearse, while the Bengals have tendered linebacker Emmanuel Lamur.

When a player is eligible for free agency, his team can choose to submit one of three contract tenders to him — the higher the offer, the higher the compensation for his club if he ends up signings elsewhere. In the cases of Kearse and Lamur, their respective teams offered them one-year deals worth $2.356MM, ensuring that if either player signs an offer sheet with another team and that sheet goes unmatched, the Seahawks or Bengals would receive a second-round pick as compensation.

Neither Kearse nor Lamur has signed their one-year tender yet, and I’d imagine the agents for both players will at least poke around on the open market next week to see if a rival suitor is willing to make a long-term offer. It’s possible though that both players will simply end up signing the one-year offer from their current clubs — they’ll have until April 24 to find offer sheets elsewhere.

Kearse, 25, caught just 38 balls for 537 yards and a touchdown for the Seahawks during the regular season last year, but hauled in a pair of TDs in the postseason. Most notably, after Russell Wilson‘s threw four interceptions trying to get him the ball in the NFC Championship game, Kearse hauled in his first reception of the day in overtime, in the end zone, to send Seattle to the Super Bowl.

As for Lamur, in over 900 defensive snaps for the Bengals, he graded as a below-average in pass coverage, run defense, and as a pass rusher, per Pro Football Focus (subscription required), which ranked him 39th out of 40 qualified 4-3 outside linebackers. However, the team clearly viewed the 25-year-old’s performance more favorably, with his 97 tackles and two interceptions earning him a one-year offer that will almost certainly keep him in Cincinnati.

The Bengals may have been wary about assigning the low-end tender to Lamur after doing so with Andrew Hawkins a year ago and eventually losing him to the Bengals. That tender would only have been worth about $1.54MM, but it would have allowed other teams to sign Lamur to an offer sheet without risking any draft picks.

Bengals Notes: Dalton, Burfict, Green, Bernard

June 8th, 2014 at 3:36pm CST by Dallas Robinson

In the wake of Colin Kaepernick‘s extension, it’s going to be tough for the Bengals to offer Andy Dalton anything less than $18MM annually, writes Paul Dehner Jr. of the Cincinnati Enquirer. Dalton (whom I recently profiled as an extension candidate) would probably need to indicate that he is amendable to a team-friendly structure that would not overwhelmingly restrict Cincinnati’s salary cap space. Former agent Joel Corry believes that Dalton could accept a contract similar to Kaepernick’s, provided that the AAV is similar. “There’s got to be some sort of interplay,” says Corry. “The better the structure, the more flexibility I had on dollars because you can’t have your cake and eat it, too, particularly when you are under contract for years.”

More notes from Cincinnati:

  • Within the same piece, Dehner Jr. observes that Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict would have to accept a heavy discount in order to sign an extension now, as Cincinnati controls his rights in 2014 for a mere $570K, and can slap a first-round tender on him in 2015, holding him as a restricted free agent for about $3.3MM.
  • Dehner Jr. also believes the Bengals are closely watching for negotiations between the Dez Bryant and the Cowboys, as a deal between the two sides could serve as a baseline for talks with receiver A.J. Green, whom the Bengals control for two more seasons.
  • Second-year running back Giovani Bernard is expected to open the 2014 season as the Bengals starter, and he hopes to produce more big plays on offense, per Coley Harvey of ESPN.com. “If you’re a running back, you always want to be able to have explosive runs,” said the 2013 second-rounder. “Maybe not so much just the 10-yard runs or 15-yard runs or the 20. I want to be able to break the 50s, 60s and 70s. And who knows? Maybe the 80s and 90s. Things like that take hard work and dedication. That’s really where your skills come into play is on those explosive runs.”
  • In his latest mailbag, Harvey notes that linebacker Emmanuel Lamur, who missed all of last season with a shoulder injury, will be relied on in 2014, and will especially aid in coverage, an area where the Bengals struggled in 2013. Lamur is expected to serve as the starting strong-side linebacker next season.