OL Pressures After 2 weeks

[WeezyBengal]

(09-18-2023, 02:50 PM)ochocincos Wrote: With Burrow's contract now factored in and Collins off the books, Bengals are projected to be sitting at ~$72 mill in cap currently for next year.
That's currently 6th highest available cap.

With that said, there are some starting spots that could potentially need to be filled with upcoming FAs:
NT (DJ Reader)
WR2 (Tee Higgins)
WR3 (Tyler Boyd)
RT (Jonah Williams)
TE (Irv Smith)
CB1 (Chidobe Awuzie)

Handful of backup spots to worry about too:
TE2 (Sample)
NT2 (Tupou)
LB3 (ADG)
LB4 (Bailey)

Higgins getting tagged will be over $20 mill. I believe around $25 mill, IIRC.
That would take a big chunk of the available cap.

It's likely DJ Turner is set to take Awuzie's spot after this year and start opposite CTB.

Bengals could need 2, maybe 3, new pass catchers.
Will Charlie Jones be ready to take over slot duties if/when Boyd leaves?

It's expected (at least by me) that we'll see Boyd and (at least) two of Higgins/Reader/Williams depart in FA.
I think the Bengals can probably get two immediate starters out of the draft, three if they're lucky.
They might have to look to the cheaper FA market to backfill some spots with a competent veteran, even if the veteran isn't quite as good as the person they are replacing.

They REALLY need to dip into the FA pool this off-season and get a proven inside DL...especially with Reader gone. They aren't good enough as is with him and they are for sure going to suck next year without him.