The Cincinnati Bengals and DJ Reader never got on the same page during free agency. According to Reader, the Bengals never really opened the book.
Reader gave his answer to why talks between him and the team fell apart to Kay Adams on her show Up And Adams.
"I think things just take time and I felt like I was there during rehab doing my thing and the talks just never happened." Reader told Adams. "And then they didn't happen until free agency happened and by that time I'm like, you know, I should probably go see like, what else there is to offer since it didn't seem like during that time that there was a focus of me being there."
Reader ended up signing with the Detroit Lions a day after free agency officially opened. The Bengals had all of the legal tampering period to try and work out a deal. From Reader's perspective, not enough was being done to make that happen.
His answer of "talks just never happened," however, is an interesting contrast to what the team's de facto general manager said of the situation weeks beforehand.
DJ Reader and Duke Tobin's differing comments
At the NFL Scouting Combine, I asked Tobin about the difficulties of discussing a new contract with Reader while he was rehabbing a season-ending injury. Tobin's response seems to contradict Reader's reflection of the process.
"Are we talking to him? We are talking to him," Tobin said in February. "He's in the building every day, rehabbing, trying to get trying to get himself in position to to have another successful season. He's been through this injury before on the other side. So we think he's going to get through it and be be just fine. But we're talking to him like we are a lot of our UFAs, and seeing if there's an opportunity to get him signed back."
Were there talks or were there no talks? It could just be Reader's own perspective of the matter as he felt he wasn't being prioritized by the club.
"So, you know, that might not have been the case, might have some other things to figure out, but that's just how I felt and how I took it," Reader said. "I just really wanted to make sure I weighed all my options."
The Bengals didn't let Reader leave without at least offering him a contract. The team remained interested in retaining him according to multiple reports. The two-year, $22 million deal Reader eventually landed from Detroit does tell us that his market wasn't too strong to begin with, and perhaps Cincinnati's offer may've not been very strong either.
It's reasonable to believe Reader just didn't take it seriously.
How things actually went down between Reader and his former club may be a mystery, but the end result remains clear. Reader is off to help the Lions get over the hump, and the Bengals are left rebuilding their defensive tackle position.
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