Bengals FA Plan - What was it, was it good?

[*ochocincos*]

The Bengals have ended up with quite a large number of outside FAs brought in, but was it the plan and was it good enough?

One has to wonder how refined their plan was heading into FA, as they:
- Allowed their top two defensive FAs leave
- Replaced them with close-but-not-better guys
- Let go of Hart and Atkins about a week into FA

You would think if they were adamant about moving on from Atkins and Hart, they would have moved on from them prior to the start of FA so that they had nearly $15 mill more cap space to work with.

With most of the FA signings only for 1 year, the only real spots they solidified were:
- DE1 (Hendrickson)
- Slot CB (Hilton)
- CB2 (Awuzie)

And between those 3, the average per year cost is $28.5 mill, which is the exact same APY cost of WJ3 and Carl Lawson.

The other positions that were filled with a (likely) stopgap 1-year rental:
- RT (Reiff)
- 3T (Ogunjobi)
- Backup S (Allen)

OG was left the same as last year with just Spain re-signed, and WR is worse since AJ Green and John Ross have both left and no replacements brought in.

Last, the Bengals still have >$20 mill in cap space, but most of that came from releases of Hart and Atkins. Had they done the releases sooner, perhaps they could have gotten a key guy at OG and/or WR.

Given what remains in FA, the Bengals are likely going to hold onto most that remaining $20+ mill cap and use a small portion for extension, but will carry over probably $9-12 mill into next year, like they always do.

What I believe their FA approach was was try to extend Lawson and put in "decent" offers to guys like Thuney and Zeitler but not willing to go beyond a certain point. It resulted in them getting none of Lawson, Thuney, or Zeitler. Now, they'll have to hope they get an immediate contributor at WR and (possibly) OG and pass rusher via the draft.

So what say you? Did the Bengals have a good plan going into FA, and was it good enough or not?