Bengals front office incompetence exposed in insider's free agency report

Homers, cease your genuflecting for a beat. Is anyone else in the Cincinnati Bengals fanbase tired of this?

Tired of the excuses? Tired of substandard football? Tired of the unwillingness to *truly* max out the roster in any given year for a Super Bowl push? Tired of the nepo baby nincompoops who run the Bengals' mom-and-pop shop football operation?

Because I am! The lack of urgency within the organization is astounding. Cincinnati.com beat reporter Kelsey Conway dove deep on free agency in her latest report. She tapped into sources at 1 Paycor Stadium to unearth the supposed rationale on some of the Bengals' decisions in free agency.

This is a rabbit hole you'll want to be forewarned about. Think more Red Pill than Wonderland.

Bengals' reported logic for certain actions in free agency somehow makes the bigger picture MORE disappointing

Kicking things off, Conway explains that Cincinnati is indeed keen to give second contracts to boundary cornerbacks DJ Turner and Dax Hill.

"It’s not uncommon that negotiations haven’t started as they typically heat up closer to the start of training camp. However, it’s noteworthy that the Bengals have already done their due diligence in making sure Hill and Turner know the franchise is planning to give them new deals."

Is it noteworthy, though? You know what would be noteworthy? Actually extending Turner or Hill — one of them, the HORROR! — before free agency, so you could have a better understanding of your salary cap future beyond this year. And you could structure new free-agent contracts accordingly.

Remember the team that beat the Bengals in Super Bowl LVI? The Los Angeles Rams? Yeah. They gave their nickel/safety hybrid type Quentin Lake a three-year contract extension on New Year's Day. While they were in the hot pursuit of another Lombardi Trophy.

First day of summer is June 21. Sounds like Cincinnati's geniuses are willing to sit on their hands until then to even begin making meaningful strides toward locking up Turner or Hill for the long haul.

The Bengals' dynamic duo share an agent. That should be entertaining to watch.

Unfortunately, the weirdness on Cincinnati's approach to its cornerback corps goes deeper than this. From Conway, on the Bengals' self-acknowledged necessity for depth at that spot:

"Jalen Davis was re-signed as an option at slot cornerback, but the Bengals need more production than what Davis has previously provided. Internally, the need to add more to this position group was noted. Because the franchise is expecting to sign Hill and Turner to multi-year deals, they weren’t targeting players who wanted multi-year commitments like Alontae Taylor or Jaylen Johnson. They are in the one-year market for this position, which makes sense given who they already have. All of this to say, the Bengals are aware they need to add more to the cornerback room, especially after Marco Wilson signed with the Miami Dolphins, so expect the team to target a cornerback on Day 1 or 2 of the NFL Draft."

I love that the bar is so low for triggering this group of galaxy brains to act that losing Marco Wilson was something of a wake-up call. Hahahahahaha.

First of all, that sentence about Davis is funny to me. When he actually got an opportunity to start in 2025, he played pretty great. Better than the out-of-position Hill did at the nickel. Davis was stuck behind the legendary Mike Hilton for many years, so I don't buy the notion that Davis must be replaced as a starter.

If Ohio State's Caleb Downs or Oregon's Dillon Thieneman are available at 10th overall in the draft, will I say no? Of course not. Either one of them are welcome in Cincinnati for sure, and would probably start over Davis. They would also function as viable contingency plans in case the Bengals don't hang onto starting safety Jordan Battle, who's entering a contract year.

See how much sense that makes? A safety/nickel flex defender who could knock out multiple needs at once?

Instead, this report suggests the Bengals are more locked in on adding a perimeter cornerback sometime in the first three rounds. Stripe Hype's Christopher Kokaliares suggested this was a real possibility in a recent piece. It's now backed up by the internal groupthink in Cincy.

Here's where the logic breaks down: If you're only interested in one-year deals for bargain-bin free agents, and yet you want to sign Turner/Hill to new contracts of presumably three years or more, why would you create a controversy by drafting someone at their position 10th overall? That player would be under contract for at least four years.

Is the internal plan to move Dax back to nickel? Good lord. How does any of this make a lick of sense? That's rhetorical. It doesn't. The math ain't mathin.'

The secondary isn't the only problematic aspect of Bengals' critical free agency period

Lamar Jackson. Patrick Mahomes. Josh Allen. Dak Prescott. Jared Goff.

What do they have in common? They all restructured their contracts to create loads of cap space for their teams this offseason. Joe Burrow has publicly declared he'd be willing to do this for the Bengals. OverTheCap.com indicates a Burrow restructure would free up $19+ million in 2026 cap room.

It's not like Cincinnati is hurting for future cap space, either. There's almost $85 million to work with in 2027. The Bengals nevertheless declined to restructure Burrow's deal, because that's not how they do business.

Shocker: It cost them multiple golden opportunities in free agency to date!

Conway reported that the Bengals showed initial interest in John Franklin-Myers, who, unlike eventual acquisition Jonathan Allen, has the versatility to align on the edge. Defensive end is still a need in Cincinnati, despite the signing of Boye Mafe.

The San Francisco 49ers and Tennessee Titans were the finalists for Franklin-Myers. The Bengals were never close. Franklin-Myers went with the Titans. San Francisco was undaunted, however, trading for elite Dallas Cowboys interior pass rusher Osa Odighizuwa in exchange for a third-round pick.

Now we get to Conway's write-up on Franklin-Myers, Odighizuwa, and the ripple effect all these defensive line dominos had on the Bengals' bids to add a veteran linebacker like my beloved Leo Chenal. This is quite the revelation after everything that I've teed up in this section so far:

"The Bengals were never going to be able to afford signing Franklin-Myers and Mafe, so when Franklin-Myers wasn’t an option for Cincinnati, the decision to sign Mafe became clearer. [...] There weren’t many linebackers the franchise tried to make a legit run at in free agency – yet. […] The signing of Mafe impacted the interest in Leo Chenal, who fans and media projected as a potential Bengals prospect. The Enquirer confirmed the Bengals weren’t in the mix for Odighizuwa despite a clear need to get younger and stronger at the defensive tackle position. […] The Bengals opted not to make a serious run at a trade for Odighizuwa. If Odighizuwa plays well in San Francisco, the 49ers go on a postseason run and the Bengals struggle again, Cincinnati could be wondering what could have been had it decided to be more aggressive with Odighizuwa."

By the way, I said, "My beloved Leo Chenal" because he, along with Franklin-Myers, were two of my most coveted free agents from my 3,000-word Bengals mock offseason. So were Mafe and Chenal's ex-Kansas City teammate/new Cincinnati safety Bryan Cook, so at least the Bengals got a couple of my guys.

Nevertheless, you can't help but wonder why Cincinnati's front office shot themselves in the foot so hard and didn't do more. While there's still lots of time to add talent via the open market and the draft, the most meaningful veterans are already in the fold.

And the way this team structures contracts is so mind-numbingly stupid that it borders on unbelievable.

Changing that approach would go a long way in freeing up more cap space in the present. So, too, would restructuring a big contract like Burrow's to make a bigger push in 2026.

Alas, that's just not how the Bengals do things. And I guess we're all supposed to sit here and take it and accept our fate as a second-rate-at-best organization. Whatever. I'll keep screaming about it and maybe someone who can do something about it will listen someday.

The Bengals do realize the salary cap keeps blowing past annual projections, right? They know an 18th regular-season game and a resultant big revenue boost are imminent?

One wonders if they're off analog tech at Cincinnati headquarters.