Paul Dehner Jr.

Cincinnati

Sitting near the sliding glass door overlooking the plush, green golf course at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Mike Brown spoke with me and Bengals.com reporter Geoff Hobson about a range of topics the day before the league meetings begin in Orlando.

He discussed the possible expansion of the postseason, Marvin Lewis' missing playoff victory, the desire to sign Andy Dalton long-term and options regarding A.J. Green.

Here's a collection of the five most revealing questions and answers with Brown as the team comes off an early free agency period spent watching top targets Michael Johnson and Anthony Collins bolt for Tampa Bay and extending Lewis by one year.

Marvin said you are more patient than he is, but people, of course, want Marvin to win that playoff game.

"Listen, no one wants to win that playoff game more than Marvin does. Believe me, this last year we thought we were going to win this playoff game finally, everything had aligned and lo and behold we found a way not to. Does that upset some people? I think it does, but they aren't just the people watching in the stands it's the people playing, the people coaching, the people in my situation, we all wanted to get that done. But my reaction to disappointment is not lop off people's heads. I think we proved that we were pretty good, that we have a good, solid football team. I don't know that starting over suddenly is the best way to take the next step. I think we have a strong base, we can build on that. One of these days we won't fumble and they will. If that is patience, then I guess I am patient."

Seeing these big numbers directed to QBs in the new CBA, they will continue to get paid far more than others — is it safer to lock in quarterbacks early before those numbers continue to jump up and is there inherent risk in allowing quarterbacks like Dalton to hit the market because teams are willing to spend such huge amounts of money to get a QB?

"The player market is something that always is surprising. Why the prices are so high is hard to know for sure. You look backwards and there have been more bad deals than good deals from a club's perspective. That doesn't mean there haven't been some good deals – there have. More often than not you don't win overpaying a guy.

"With quarterbacks there is another dilemma. With a fixed cap there is a certain amount of money and no more. You allocate that on a quarterback you have less to hand out to everybody else. It can cause attrition. We are going through a difficult time right now because we are trying to work through a deal with Andy and trying to hold back enough money in the cap to do that, yet we don't know what that is.

"What do we do? Do we sign guys then find out we don't have enough to do him? Or do we risk and hold back enough to make sure we can get him done and maybe lose a guy or two? That is what happened to us already this year. When you go forward in this league it is not clear which is the better way to go. Do you have a high-priced quarterback and less elsewhere or do you try to have as many guys as you can have and maybe a quarterback that is young and not so highly paid? Seattle, for example of that. In fact, you look at the statistics it is rather surprising how few quarterbacks that are old in recent years – saying over 30 – have won the Super Bowl. They've gotten there but they haven't won it. I don't know, is that a better formula, to go with a younger guy and spread the money around? That's a dilemma for us. ... It's slow going. I can't predict when we are going to get that matter resolved."

You've made a decision you'd like to go with Dalton as your guy going forward?

"We are going to try to get something done, but I don't know if we are going to be able to or not. At some point we are going to have to do something more than just let everyone else leave waiting to get something done with that situation. We held back this year trying to put ourselves in a position to get him done. If it turns out it can't be made to work we will do something elsewhere. I don't think we plan to go another year the way we did this year."

Would you put A.J. Green needing an extension in a similar boat as Dalton?

"A.J. has one difference, you can tender him (with the transition tag – $10.176 million for a WR in 2014). That takes a big chunk of money. He'd probably get it anyway. It keeps him on the reservation. He's not going to be leaving. He's going to be here for not one more year but two more years. Even though we haven't tendered him yet our intention is to do that and put ourselves in position to turn to others such as Dalton, and we would like to turn to a couple more as well. We would like to get something long term, but at least we know with A.J. we have two years. With some of the others we have one year."

How do you feel about the possibility of expanding the playoffs to counteract trimming the preseason?

"If you tied the two together, I think that would be a good way to go forward. I don't think it's ripe for a call this time. I think it's going to be discussed and it will lay the foundation to do something that could be as early as May or at the next annual meeting, I don't know, but I do think that one will happen. If you had another wild card game, that would produce a revenue stream that could be used to offset money lost if you did something with the preseason. There could be a lot of ways to approach it. Cut it back one game, two games. Would you just reduce the prices? I'm not sure how that would evolve, but this gives you an opportunity to do that if you chose and still have a revenue stream that would be comparable, which would appeal to the players. As much as they talk about the preseason, they aren't looking to go back in revenue. This might be a way to satisfy everybody."