Yes we could sign Oline and CJ Jackson

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(03-09-2022, 10:17 PM)casear2727 Wrote: Ok, so after all the worry about the escrow and the cap I'll provide a sliver of hope that could make the oline only folks and the sign JC Jackson folks happy.  

The last 2 years the Bengals have spent more cash than cap - these are two totally different things.  

I have seen numbers from 70 to 120 million cash under their year-to-year avg spending.  And we dont have much in cash coming off the books this year.  Due to drafting next to last we save a ton on rookie bonus cash. We will be around 6M this year where as Chase received around 20M by himself.

As we all know, tagging Bates hurts us a few million as to cap space. But it actually helps us with cash. Had we extended Bates he most likely would have cost us around $25M in upfront cash bonus money - so we save that.

Since we have this cash, and have spent it the past 2 years, we could lower the guaranteed portion of free agent demands like JC and Jensen by offering large upfront signing bonuses that would be prorated over the term of of the contract with a small balance into next year.  JC wants 56M guaranteed over the life of his contract, we could offer 45M guaranteed with a 25M signing bonus upfront, also lowering his cap hit.

$52M in cap space after cutting Waynes & Hopkins and a minimum of $70m in cash to spend allows us several options and the possibility to keep the escrow account in check for Burrows smash after this season.  

We also have a very easy restructure with Trey Hendrickson that wont impact him and have low impact on us.  He has a 6M roster bonus coming up. We could convert this to a signing bonus (still pays him 6M) freeing up 4M in cap space leaving 2M in dead money.

There are ways to make things happen.

Jensen and another very solid pickup be it guard or tackle will help tremendously. We still need Carmen and another bench guy/rookie to step up most likely, or pickup a cheap vet minimum on Spain again.

JC, Awuzie, Bates, Bell, and Hilton could be the #1 secondary in the NFL.



Andre Perrotta is an excellent source for cap/cash Bengals info.

While I would love to have him in our secondary, this move would prevent 2-3 other signings.  Yes, you could maybe add Jensen, but I would like to see the Bengals find another Chido-level deal in the secondary, and add at least two solid FA signings on the offensive line like Jensen and Daniels. 

I would dangle the first round pick to the Texans for Tunsil as well, but no more than that.  They gave up so much to get him, I doubt they accept but I would take the known with him over a draft pick.