I see a lot of people going crazy over how much cap space we will have this offseason but that number is meaningless without looking at potential free agent losses.

The Bengals are projected to have about $58 million in cap space and could gain another $10 by releasing Trae Waynes. So that is $68 million. But look at the starters and other main contributors we will have to replace.

Reiff, starter
Ogunjobi, starter
Uzomah, starter
Bates, starter
Spain, starter
Apple, starter

B.J. Hill, 50% of snaps
Tupou, 40% of snaps

The first thing to consider when looking at potential free agent losses is who do we already have on the roster that could fill one of these spots. On the O-line I like the potential of Carman and D'Ante Smith, but the odds are against both them stepping up to play as well as Spain and Reiff. I think most people would agree that we should invest some free agent money on at least TWO offensive linemen for next year. On D-line we have a couple of rookies who could potentially step up their game in Shelvin and Sample. But they are both 4th rounders and Sample is more DE than DT. We have a good history with 4th round picks, but the odds are against either of them playing as well as Ogunjobi or Hill are pretty slim. So if one replaces Tupou then we still need to sign TWO DTs. We have no one to step up and replace Uzomah, Bates, or Apple. So that is THREE more big holes to fill.

Next you look at potential draft picks to replace losses. With us picking at 32 it will be difficult to find a player that will step in and start immediately.

So it looks like we will need to spread out our $68 million over 7 players. If you start looking at guys who make over $15 million ayear you will have to start cutting down expectations at other positions.

And there will be other smaller holes that need to be filled. Huber and Clark Harris are also free agents. At Safety/DB Ricardo Allen and Tre Flowers played almost a third of the defensive snaps (323). Waynes played almost a quarter of the snaps at CB (243).

And. finally, the Bengals only ended up with $5 million in unused cap space to roll over this year. So there was no way we could have afforded those $15 million dollar O-linemen a lot of people were screaming for last year. We were actually lucky last year cap wise. We got Jesse Bates, Quinton Spain, and B.J. Hill for a COMBINED TOTAL of only $3.37 million. No way in hell we will be able to replace them with equal players at five times that amount.

Cliff notes: Bengals will not have unlimited cap space to sign lots of big name free agents after replacing our losses.

Do we also have an additional $3M or so with the release of Xavier Su'a-Filo?

If we pick up a Center we could save $6M releasing Hopkins from his final year.

My opinion:

Draft Tackle and CB in 1st and 2nd Rounds (either order)

I was against overpaying Bates during the season but he has earned a solid contract, hope he doesnt break the bank.

Cut Hopkins sign a Bradley Bozeman type.

Resign CJ on a friendly contract, love him but he's not top tier.

Resign Hill if possible. The impact of Larry O's injury will be interesting - doubt we can keep both.

Flowers is a good keep at the right price.

Not sure of the fit Apple is with this team and how much he will want, his reputation will limit some teams.

I dont believe Spain will be overly expensive, resign.

Sign a FA Guard, would love a Tackle but those are vastly more expensive. Of course we dont draft oline very well, hopefully we can get a good one. Guard Conner Williams wouldnt break the bank. Alex Cappa would be excellent but may be too expensive.

I would love huge gets along the oline in FA but we have Jonah & Tee coming up followed by Burrow and Chase that we need to be prepared for. Do we sign an expensive star along with lower level oline guys or 2-3 above average guys?

Nice breakdown Fred. I’m not sure why this thread is ranked at only 1 star.

I’d like to see Hill, Ogunjobi, Bates, Apple, Uzo, and Spain resigned. I’m not sure on Reiff—but if the price is right.

I would think we’d still have 15k to spend on a lineman (assuming we drop Waynes).

What do you think the numbers work out for these guys? I was thinking 45k not including reiff. Is that too low?

I imagine Bates, Rieff, Hill, and Spain will be top priorities the rest can be replaced with similar players in FA.

Also the Bengals could additionally release Wayne's, Hopkins, Brandon Wilson, and Trade Tyler Boyd(not ideal I agree) to a needy WR team. To create more cap space.

(02-05-2022, 03:42 PM)J24 Wrote: Also the Bengals could additionally release Wayne's, Hopkins, Brandon Wilson, and Trade Tyler Boyd(not ideal I agree) to a needy WR team. To create more  cap space.

But we have no one on the roster now to replace starters Hopkins and Boyd.

It does not help to create more cap space if you are also creating new holes to fill.  That only works if you already have good young players with a lot of potential on the roster to step up into those holes.

(02-05-2022, 03:42 PM)J24 Wrote: I imagine Bates, Rieff, Hill, and Spain will be top priorities the rest can be replaced with similar players in FA.

Also the Bengals could additionally release Wayne's, Hopkins, Brandon Wilson, and Trade Tyler Boyd(not ideal I agree) to a needy WR team. To create more cap space.

Don’t understand why you guys want to re-sign Riley Reiff. Guy is old and not really good. We need a major upgrade at RT and RG.

We are in the Super Bowl. I would like to do whatever is possible to keep the majority of this team intact. If that means not having a splashy free agent class like the last couple years I'm fine with that.

Good thread. This is something I've found myself wondering and I know the cap situation can be tricky. I was wondering with all the talk of cap space if it would even be possible to sign essentially all are free agents while still picking up at least one really solid olineman.
I think Bates is a top priority and then Spain. If we let Waynes go then hopefully we can sign Apple to a moderate contract. I really think any realistic fix to the oline has to be in free agency this year with our draft position. If we can't keep both Hill and Larry then I think we need to be extra aggressive getting 2 Olineman. That way we free up the 1st rd for a DT if OL is not where we like and we could even trade out of the 1st to pick up extra picks. I also think Uzomah will sign a modest contract as I don't see a huge market for him and he loves it here.

Reiff hasn’t played in the postseason and isn’t needed back unless he wants to come back cheaper as a backup or compete for a guard spot.

Uzomah is a solid TE and great effort/locker room guy. If he wants to break the bank we can let him walk. If he wants to come back around the same price we can definitely re-sign him. ($7 mil)

Bates we can franchise or sign long term. ($17 mil)

We can bring back one of Larry/Hill. Having both was amazing but not something that is likely to continue for ANY team. ($7 mil) Topou can walk or come back at less than $2 mil. We have Shelvin if he walks anyway.

We can bring back Spain and Apple as well at reasonable deals. Both are making less than $2 mil this year, but both have earned raises. That said neither will break the bank. ($10 mil combined and likely less than that).

Those are actually pretty generous yearly amounts I’ve used there and we are around $41 mil spent to bring back a very comparable team to this year. With cuts we will have nearly $30 mil to upgrade with outside FA before draft picks which won’t cost as much as previous years due to our low draft slot.

We can bring back almost all of our important pieces. Bring in a couple of good draft picks AND still sign a major FA or 2 to help fix the o line. We could very easily win the SB, have basically the same team coming back PLUS 2 big additions on the O line which is our major weakness.

None of that even factors in FA’s potentially wanting to come here cheaper to chase a ring with a star QB and defending SB champs set up for long term success. We are in a great situation cap wise, unlike some previous years where you posting something like this is needed. There were times we had money and tons a FA to try to keep that took it all up. Not this year.

(02-05-2022, 03:54 PM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: We are in the Super Bowl. I would like to do whatever is possible to keep the majority of this team intact. If that means not having a splashy free agent class like the last couple years I'm fine with that.

I am with you, get most of the guys back.  Need to make sure the Oline is much improved though.  I would trade Bates (salary requirements to stay) for a really good but, not past his prime, RT. 

Hopefully a couple really good guys fall to the Bengals in this draft. 

(02-05-2022, 03:51 PM)Jhowdy54 Wrote: Don’t understand why you guys want to re-sign Riley Reiff. Guy is old and not really good.  We need a major upgrade at RT and RG.

He seemed to be playing well before the injury. Also where we are drafting we are gonna be looking at a day 2 graded tackle. Not sure what the fix is in free agency LT that want big money or maybe Moses? Reiff should be cheap then you can take a T in the end of the 1st or if you trade out early mid 2nd and have depth and ability to let him develop.

Gonna be pivotal off-season and one thats gonna be hard to get exactly right. I think there's a lot of really good RGs in free agency but if that's our fix then what happens to Carman. I wonder if he has potential to play RT. 

As fans we have seen the Bengals sign several guys over the last couple years but we have to realize alot of that was due to them not having guys of their own worth resigning.

Now in 2021 we finally have people we want to bring back and they will also receive raises. It won't be as easy to go out and target a bunch of Free Agents. Now I do believe there will be money for at least 1 solid signing outside of the guys they want to bring back... The big question mark is what they want to do at Right Tackle because when the season ends Isaiah Prince is the only guy with RT experience on the roster.

(02-05-2022, 03:54 PM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: We are in the Super Bowl. I would like to do whatever is possible to keep the majority of this team intact. If that means not having a splashy free agent class like the last couple years I'm fine with that.

We can literally only run a portion of our playbook due to the awfulness of the oline.  We need a C, RG and RT.

(02-05-2022, 04:07 PM)leonardfan40 Wrote: Those are actually pretty generous yearly amounts I’ve used there and we are around $41 mil spent to bring back a very comparable team to this year.

No way you can consider an O-line With Prince starting at RT to be "comparable" to Reiff.  Guess you have not noticed that without him we can't run very well, complete deep passes, or finish in the red zone.  Our offense only has 5 tds in 32 post season possessions.

And you only resigned one of Hill/Ogunjobi so we are also short a DT.

I also doubt we can bring back both Spain and Apple for $10 million

Ossai fit in the plans anywhere ?

(02-05-2022, 04:23 PM)casear2727 Wrote: Trading Bates is an extremely controversial, but killer Patriot move. Get high value while you can as we are not maximizing his potential. 

Bates is a free agent.

What he meant was "trading" the big dollars we would spend on Bates to a free agent O-lineman and signing a cheaper safety.

(02-05-2022, 02:49 PM)fredtoast Wrote: I see a lot of people going crazy over how much cap space we will have this offseason but that number is meaningless without looking at potential free agent losses.

The Bengals are projected to have about $58 million in cap space and could gain another $10 by releasing Trae Waynes.  So that is $68 million.  But look at the starters and other main contributors we will have to replace.

Reiff, starter
Ogunjobi, starter
Uzomah, starter
Bates, starter
Spain, starter
Apple, starter

B.J. Hill, 50% of snaps
Tupou, 40% of snaps

The first thing to consider when looking at potential free agent losses is who do we already have on the roster that could fill one of these spots.  On the O-line I like the potential of Carman and D'Ante Smith, but the odds are against both them stepping up to play as well as Spain and Reiff.  I think most people would agree that we should invest some free agent money on at least TWO offensive linemen for next year.  On D-line we have a couple of rookies who could potentially step up their game in Shelvin and Sample.  But they are both 4th rounders and Sample is more DE than DT.  We have a good history with 4th round picks, but the odds are against either of them playing as well as Ogunjobi or Hill are pretty slim.  So if one replaces Tupou then we still need to sign TWO DTs.  We have no one to step up and replace Uzomah, Bates, or Apple.  So that is THREE more big holes to fill.

Next you look at potential draft picks to replace losses.  With us picking at 32 it will be difficult to find a player that will step in and start immediately.  

So it looks like we will need to spread out our $68 million over 7 players.  If you start looking at guys who make over $15 million ayear you will have to start cutting down expectations at other positions.

And there will be other smaller holes that need to be filled.  Huber and Clark Harris are also free agents.  At Safety/DB Ricardo Allen and Tre Flowers played almost a third of the defensive snaps (323).  Waynes played almost a quarter of the snaps at CB (243).

And. finally, the Bengals only ended up with $5 million in unused cap space to roll over this year.  So there was no way we could have afforded those $15 million dollar O-linemen a lot of people were screaming for last year.  We were actually lucky last year cap wise.  We got Jesse Bates, Quinton Spain, and B.J. Hill for a COMBINED TOTAL of only $3.37 million.  No way in hell we will be able to replace them with equal players at five times that amount.

Cliff notes:  Bengals will not have unlimited cap space to sign lots of big name free agents after replacing our losses.

I've been saying the same thing in my mocks from the past couple months.
It seems like a lot, but when you look, the Bengals only have ~35 players under contract for 2022.


I know people think that players might be willing to sign for a discount to play with Burrow, but I doubt it'd be THAT much of a discount.

Some of the more impactful players the Bengals have that are set to hit FA should fetch $5+ mill each, which will go through that cap kinda fast.

They might only be able to sign a good starter or two while retaining most of their talent.

We'll have to see how FA pans out starting mid-March.

I don't want to re-sign Reiff, but I do want to sign someone at least as good to replace him. I don't see anyone already on the roster I want starting at RT next year.

I really like the potential of D'ante Smith, but he has not shown enough to count on him as a starter next year.

I actually wouldn't mind taking a RT in the first or second round of the draft and just signing another one-year free agent RT.

At some point we have to get production from guys on rookie contracts, but that does not mean they have to start as rookies. I think Carman can be a solid starter. But we still need a RT, and I don't want to count on starting a rookie. Especially since our first pick will be all the way back at 31-32.

When you pick in the top ten you can feel better about drafting a guy who will start as a rookie.  And if you draft in the top ten you are usually desperate for a guy who will start as a rookie.  At 31-32 you are drafting a guy that will probably need a year to develop (unless you are drafting a WR or RB).

When you draft in the top ten you also have a much better idea of exactly which players will be available in order to target a specific position.  When you draft at 31-32 you are much more likely to go BPA because it might be too big of a reach to take a player at a position of need.

I would hate to spen all of our free agent money before the draft and still have an important hole to fill.

(02-05-2022, 04:23 PM)casear2727 Wrote: Trading Bates is an extremely controversial, but killer Patriot move. Get high value while you can as we are not maximizing his potential. 

Not talking about trading him, I mean don't pay him $15m to stay.  Let him walk and use that money to get a serious upgrade to the OL.