Long time Bengals fans know that this franchise will give you just enough hope to keep you coming back, while inevitably breaking your heart. Three Super Bowl appearances and zero wins. Only one of those appearances after the 1980’s. Countless talented football players have left this team in their prime (or at least close to it) because the team didn’t want to pay them their worth (Jessie Bates) or get with the times in terms of guaranteed money (Trey Hendrickson). But on the other hand, they locked in franchise superstars Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase & Tee Higgins to long term contracts over the last two years. Like I said, just enough hope to keep you from walking away.
We all knew that this was a make or break offseason for the Cincinnati Bengals. De facto GM Duke Tobin more or less said so himself at the end of last season, when he claimed that he and the team were “all in” on offseason moves designed to bring the team back to their winning ways. Which is why the team signing two marquee free agents & then seemingly turning their phones off feels very Bengals-ish.
Make no mistake about it- Boye Mafe & Bryan Cook are excellent free agent acquisitions. Mafe has compiled 20 sacks over his four seasons & Cook is known as one of the best tacklers in the NFL. Both have won Super Bowl rings in their young careers. They know how to win and can bring leadership to a young defense that needs leaders. But at the same time, Mafe is essentially just replacing the departing Trey Hendrickson and there are numerous high end safeties in the upcoming draft. As solid as these signings and players are, it’s hard not to feel slightly deflated watching other teams sign and trade for players that the Bengals can afford and do need.
In another universe, the Bengals gave Trey the security he wanted last year, negating the need to sign Mafe this offseason and instead of signing Cook, hedged their bets on the draft. If Caleb Downs doesn’t fall to 10, they trade back a few spots and take Dillion Thieneman or Emmanuel McNeill-Warren. Both are highly skilled likely first round talents and neither bad consolation prizes if Downs is gone before the 10th pick. In this alternate universe, the Bengals could go all out on linebackers like Devin Lloyd or Leo Chenal and still have money to spare.
There’s no reason why the Bengals couldn’t have made the same trade that the 49ers did with the Cowboys, a 2026 third round pick for DT Osa Odighizuwa. The Commanders signed LB Leo Chenal to a three year, $24.75 million dollar contract- a contract that the Bengals could have afforded for a younger, proven player at a position of need. The Bengals were said to be one of three teams in the running for superstar LB Devin Lloyd, but due to the team’s antiquated ideas surrounding guaranteed money beyond one season, Lloyd is now a Carolina Panther instead of a Cincinnati Bengal.
Most of the notable free agents have been signed by now. We got two very good players and knowing the Bengals MO, we’ll sign some Tier 4 and Tier 5 free agents over the next few days. Then we’ll turn our attention to April’s draft where we have the 10th pick. We’ll get our hopes up that Sonny Styles, Reuben Bain or Caleb Downs falls to us. Duke Tobin’s track record at drafting is suspect at best, especially after the first round. It’s hard to get too excited about our draft fortunes until the team, with its incredibly small scouting department, comes away with a solid class.
We’ll get our hopes up about potentially trading for Maxx Crosby now that the Ravens have backed out of that trade. We shouldn’t. We’ll get our hopes up that Al Golden’s reputation of being good with young players will translate into improved linebacker performance and Shemar Stewart living up to his first round hype. Should we? The jury is still out there.
We’ve watched the Lions, Bills, Chiefs and others restructuring the contracts of their star quarterbacks so they have more money to spend during the prime years of their current teams. It’s perhaps not ideal in a lot of ways but it’s a reality of today’s NFL. If you want to compete, you have to do things like restructure contracts and offer guaranteed money beyond just one year. We have a quarterback in Joe Burrow who is on record saying that he’s not opposed to restructuring his deal to help the team, but the team isn’t interested in doing that. It’s hard to get excited about a team that does the bare minimum each year, but then does press conferences telling fans and journalists alike that they’re “all in”. Right now, it just feels like they’re “kind of in”. Do I have hope for next year? Just enough to keep me coming back, I suppose.
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