Bengals release QB Dalton, clear way for Burrow to lead
Associated Press
CINCINNATI — The Bengals cleared the way for Joe Burrow to lead the team by releasing quarterback Andy Dalton, who holds several of the franchise’s passing records but couldn’t lead Cincinnati deep into the playoffs.
The move Thursday gives Dalton, who had a year left on his deal, a chance to compete for a job with another team.
It also clears the way for Burrow to start fresh on a team that hasn’t won a playoff game since the 1990 season, the fifth-longest stretch of futility in NFL history.
Dalton led Cincinnati to its best stretch of playoff appearances — five straight from 2011-15 — but couldn’t get that elusive win. As the offensive line deteriorated and top receiver A.J. Green sustained a series of injuries, Dalton’s results suffered, too.
“Andy will always hold a special place with this franchise, and I know that he holds a special place in my heart,” owner Mike Brown said. “This is a hard day for our club because we know and appreciate what a consummate professional Andy has always been. We respect and appreciate Andy, and we thank him.”
Dalton was a second-round pick in 2011 when quarterback Carson Palmer demanded a trade and threatened to retire rather than continue playing for the Bengals. Dalton and Green, Cincinnati’s first-round pick that year, led Cincinnati to its best stretch of playoff appearances.
BENGALS,
Commissioner Roger Goodell has reduced his salary to $0 and other NFL employees will be taking pay cuts or furloughs due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Goodell, who makes upward of $30 million a year from salaries and bonuses, voluntarily had his salary reduced this month, a person familiar with the move tells The Associated Press on Wednesday. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the NFL has not announced the move publicly.
The league also is implementing tiered reductions in base salary, beginning with the pay period ending May 22. The reduction will be 5% for workers up to the manager’s level, 7% for directors, 10% for vice presidents, 12% for senior vice presidents, and 15% for executive vice presidents.
In a memo sent to league office staffers, Goodell also said no employee earning a base salary of less than $100,000 will be affected by these reductions, and no employee’s salary will be reduced below $100,000 by the reductions.
“We hope that business conditions will improve and permit salaries to be returned to their current levels, although we do not know when that will be possible,” Goodell said.
While the NFL has gone about business as usual with free agency and the draft — and currently is planning to play a full season beginning in September — it clearly is feeling the same economic pinch as other sports. Even as it extended its streaming deal with Amazon Prime
The Bengals lost in the first round each time, setting an NFL record. Dalton had a broken thumb and was sidelined for the last of those playoff appearances, which ended in a lastminute meltdown and an 18-16 loss to Pittsburgh during the 2015 season.
Dalton was one of the NFL’s most efficient passers when given a solid supporting cast. He led the AFC with a 106.3 passer rating in 2015, a singleseason Bengals record.
Coach Zac Taylor signaled the end for Thursday night games for another three years on Wednesday, the league was making in-house financial adjustments.
That means furloughs and adjustments to pension plans.
The furlough program “for individuals in our workforce who are unable to substantially perform their duties from home and/or whose current workload has been significantly reduced,” Goodell wrote, will become effective May 8.
of Dalton’s career in Cincinnati by benching him for three games midway through last year’s 2-14 season, a move that shocked Dalton and his longtime teammates. Dalton was upset the Bengals didn’t try to trade him before the deadline.
Rookie Ryan Finley started the next three games and was even worse, prompting Taylor to reinstate Dalton as the starter for the rest of the season. Dalton led the Bengals to their two wins.
When Cincinnati drafted Burrow first overall last week, the question was whether the Bengals would keep Dalton for the final year on his contract and use him to mentor the rookie, or
Those being furloughed will be alerted in the next few days, and they will keep medical, dental and vision benefits, with the league paying the full cost of maintaining those benefits.
“It is important to remember that a furlough is not a termination,” Goodell told league staffers. “We do not know how long a furlough will last, but we are hopeful that we will be able to return furloughed employees back to work within a few months.”
let him try to win a starting job with another team.
Dalton, 32, holds Bengals career records for touchdown passes (204) and completions (2,757), surpassing Ken Anderson — who also wore No. 14 — for both marks. He also holds club marks for career passer rating (87.5) and games with 300 yards passing (28). His 24 game-winning drives also are the most by a Bengals quarterback.
His 70-61-2 record as a starter is second best by a Bengals quarterback with at least 10 starts, trailing Virgil Carter.
Dalton also holds single-season team records for yards passing (4,293 in 2013) and touchdowns (33 in 2013).
Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA — Gritty is the home school teacher the world needs right now. The furry Flyers mascot offers an education of sorts each weekday on Instagram with “Gritty’s 1/4 Hour of Power,” and his top student one day this week was forward Joel Farabee.
Gritty played charades with Farabee and the muted mascot held up signs for his pupil to read on the subject of bees. Example: “In Ancient Egypt, people paid their taxes with honey.”
But would extra honey count against the salary cap?
Farabee and the Flyers may have been brushing up on a second-round postseason scouting report instead of getting a science lesson this week had the season not been suspended because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Flyers were the toast of the NHL in early March — they were happy to raise a glass to their prosperity — because of a hot streak that turned them into a postseason threat.
Just how far the Flyers could have gone will never be known — though a proposed plan involves bringing teams back in a few empty NHL buildings to complete some, if not all, of the remaining regular-season games before opening the playoffs — so the slim chance remains they can pick up where they left off March 12, at 89 points (41-21-7) and rising.
But good health and momentum can be tricky to rediscover after a lengthy layoff and there’s no promise better days would be ahead for the Flyers, or any other team, should the season potentially resume in July.
“There’s no doubt that we were playing our best hockey of the season at the time,” coach Alain Vigneault said Wednesday. “Our team was in a good place. It will be all our jobs, from coaches to management to players, to get back to that good spot that we were in.”
Vigneault made all the right moves for the Flyers in his first season on the bench, leading them on a nine-game winning streak that ended in a 2-0 loss to the Boston Bruins on March 10, their last game of the suspended season. Carter Hart, just 21, played every bit like the franchise goalie the Flyers expected. And homegrown talent such as Scott Laughton, Travis Sanheim, Ivan Provorov and Travis Konecny — drafted amid a franchise rebuild — all turned a team with modest expectations into an Eastern Conference contender.