Are we being realistic with Free Agency expectations?

[CJD]

Here is how I would approach our cap space requirements:

The way I see it, we need to sign a starting free safety, a starting 3 tech, a starting cornerback, a starting TE and 2 to 3 new starting offensive linemen.

Let's just go down the list one by one and fill these needs.

For free safety, the obvious move is to sign Bates. I am not sure if we'll be able to sign him to a long term contract because the franchise tag is currently about 13 million dollars for safeties. If Bates does want to be the highest paid safety in the league, that would mean paying him more than what the Seahawks gave Jamal Adams, which was about 17.5 million AAV.

Side note, Adams' contract is the perfect example of why you should never trade multiple first round picks for a player near the end of their contract without a new contract extension being a contingent to completing the trade. As soon as the Seahawks made that trade, Adams knew he could ask for the world, and Seattle would have to give it to him because the sunk cost fallacy would have kicked in.

But I digress, I just don't see us giving Bates an 18 million AAV contract, so let's just say we franchise tag him for that 13 million dollar price tag.

Our cap space, is about 58 million or so for 2022. If we cut Waynes (which we will), it'll be above 69 million.

So franchise tagging Bates leaves us at 56 million remaining.

On to 3 tech DT.
I hope we re-sign either Ogunjobi or Hill, but I honestly loved having them in a rotation. I think both players benefited from the rotation, so I have my concerns that re-signing one of them will yield close to the same results in 2022. The odds of us resigning both at a reasonable price is low so I wouldn't mind looking elsewhere for a full time pass rusher at DT who doesn't need to be rotated to produce. Akiem Hicks would be an awfully attractive option if available and PFF estimates that his contract would be a 2 years, 17 million (8.5 million per year). If Hicks isn't available and we have to rely on a rotation, I think signing either Ogunjobi or Hill + taking a flier on another player would be good. Sheldon Richardson could also be a low cost "prove it" option to pair with either Hill or Ogunjobi to accomplish the same thing we did on 2021 with Hill and Ogunjobi. PFF estimates that Richardson will sign a 1 year, 3 million dollar prove it deal this year. They estimate B.J. Hill to get a 3 year 26.25 million dollar contract (8.75 million per year). That's a bit steep, in my opinion, but let's say we give him that and backload it a wee bit in order to have only a cap hit of 6 million in 2022. Either way we go, we're looking at 9 to 10 million dedicated to fixing up DT. That would leave us with 46 million left.

At CB, there are a pretty good number of corners who I think fit our scheme pretty well. If they resign Apple as a 1 to 2 million dollar back up, I think it would be a good move, but he should definitely not be the starter next year.

I know some people are pitching going all in on CB and grabbing JC Jackson, but I think he will be too expensive and is primarily a man corner, which doesn't really fit our scheme.

There are 4 cornerbacks I'd take a long, hard look at in this year's free agency class.
1. Donte Jackson
2. Casey Hayward Jr
3. Steven Nelson
4. D.J. Reed Jr

Donte Jackson would be an ideal #2 cornerback in a zone scheme like ours that doesn't break the bank. PFF is projecting a 2 year, 20 million dollar contract.
Casey Heyward may be a steal in free agency this year. He's on the older side and is only 1 year removed from his career worst year, but he played well in Oakland and fits our zone heavy scheme well. PFF is estimating a 1 year 6.5 million dollar contract for him.
Steven Nelson and D.J. Reed Jr are similar prospects in that they're slightly undersized zone corners who are limited in man coverage. While we play a lot of zone, we aren't a zone only team like Oakland's Cover 3 scheme, so these two would probably depend on Lou's comfortability with them fitting his scheme, but they are both quality zone corners who we could bring in for under 8 million per year. PFF projects them as 7 million per year (2 years, 14 million) and 8 million per year (3 years, 24 million), respectively.

Let's say we go tot he high end and sign Jackson to a 10M AAV contract. We also sign Eli Apple to a 1 year, 1.5 million dollar contract again. That leaves our cap space at 34.5 million.

At this point, I think it's fair to account for the Bengal's 2022 rookie draft pool, which is estimated to be about 7.6 million by overthecap.com

So that drops our available cap space for the Oline to 27 million dollars.

I know everyone wants to bring back C.J. Uzomah, but I'm not sure we can afford to do so unless he takes a hometown discount. PFF is estimating his contract at 3 years, 25 million (8.333 AAV) which is just...a lot of money for C.J. If we can sign him for 6M AAV, I think that would be a good deal. Otherwise, we may need to allocate this money elsewhere. Probably would mean we draft a TE in the 2nd day.

Let's say we are able to get him back for a 6 million dollar cap hit in 2022. That leaves 21 million for the offensive line. I know the Bengals always want to hold back 5 to 10 million for in-year signings and roll-over (we rolled 5 million over this year), so let's assume that we now have 15 million for the offensive line.

That would allow us to sign two starting level players at center and guard and maybe push a little money into the latter years to keep us under for 2022.

PFF estimates Laken Tomlinson, Connor Williams, James Daniels, Austin Corbett, Andrew Norwell, Alex Cappa, Quinton Spain, Ryan Jensen, Ben Jones, Brian Allen or Bradley Bozeman could be had for 9M, 6.67M, 10M, 9.25M, 7.25M, 9.25M, 4.75M, 13M, 6.67M, 7.25M or 7M AAV, respectively.

PFF also estimates that Terron Armstead, Orlando Brown Jr, Duane Brown, Morgan Moses, Trent Brown, Riley Reiff or Germain Ifedi could be had for 20M, 21M, 10M, 7.5M, 10M, 7M, or 6M AAV, respectively.

With a budget of 15 Million, the top guys like Terron Armstead, Orlando Brown Jr , Trent Brown and James Daniels are probably out. We also probably stay away from centers this year, since Hopkins is still under contract.

But, we could sign 2 starting guards in Spain and, say, Connor Williams for about 12M per year (6.67 + 4.75). That would leave us with 3M for back ups and role players. If we shift contract cap hits around, we can probably make room for Riley Reiff as well. Maybe give him a void year to make his cap hit 3.5 M. If we did this, I think the wise move would be to use the draft to find a starting RT of the future and fill up depth on the Dline and maybe TE, depending on what we do with Uzomah.

That would leave us with a total free agent pool of Jessie Bates, BJ Hill, Sheldon Richardson, Donte Jackson, Eli Apple, CJ Uzomah, Quinton Spain, Connor Williams and Riley Reiff.

I know this probably won't happen and it doesn't account for back ups who deserve contracts like Josh Tupou, but the point is we have more than enough cap space to either fix the offensive line in free agency or fix the other needs on the team such that we can focus our draft on the offensive line.

Our team should be vastly improved in 2022 and I don't think people are being all that unrealistic with what we can do in free agency.