Bengals reign among the AFC's elite on list of top offseason moves

The Cincinnati Bengals are drawing deserved praise for going all-in on a trade to acquire Dexter Lawrence. Although it did cost the 10th overall pick, Lawrence is the anchor at nose tackle that the Bengals have missed on defense since D.J. Reader's heyday.

But Lawrence is an even better player than Reader. He's an exotic, one-of-one pass rusher at 340 pounds who can obviously command double teams versus the run, too.

Many expect Lawrence to be a force multiplier who elevates the rest of a strong, far deeper Cincinnati defensive line than the team has fielded in the past. One recent list of rankings regards the Lawrence trade among the AFC's very best upgrades.

Bengals' Dexter Lawrence trade ranked as second-best AFC offseason player addition

NFL Spin Zone's Sayre Bedinger ranked the top individual offseason moves among all the AFC teams, and the Lawrence trade was regarded as the No. 2 player addition and fifth-best move overall:

"To say the production has been outrageous would be an understatement. The Giants have struggled badly as a team, but that hasn't deterred Lawrence from being one of the most dominant interior defensive linemen in the game. [...] Lawrence is going to be the one to raise the floor of this defense, and even though it cost the Bengals the 10th pick in the draft, it was worth it to get this type of impact player."

I could expound at length on why Bedinger's Broncos homerism is showing when he ranked Jaylen Waddle trade as the No. 1 move of any AFC team, player or coach or otherwise, but let's not get too far afield! All in good fun, this.

Just look at some of the splits and advanced metrics when Lawrence was on the field versus off during his time with the G-Men. The numbers are pretty staggering.

The perception that Lawrence had some down year in 2025 isn't really backed up by anything outside of box score stats, and really just one number: 0.5 sacks. But the Giants have one of the most loaded defensive lines in the sport, or at least they did when Lawrence was there. Abdul Carter, Kayvon Thibodeaux and Brian Burns would eat into some of his sack production at various times.

Even if Lawrence isn't sacking QBs like he did in 2024 when he had a career-high nine sacks, he'll allow others to flourish with the disruption he instigates.

Cincinnati gave up the 10th overall pick for Lawrence in a draft every so-called expert swore was terrible. Many of those same people criticized the Bengals for overpaying (lol).

Some of that criticism died down, when it was revealed that all it took was a one-year, $28 million extension to get Lawrence to sign off on the trade. He was down to play out the other two seasons of his contract with a little bit of reworking.

All told, it's only $70 million for three years of what should be downright dominant play from Lawrence the interior defensive line. Good on Bedinger and NFL Spin Zone for recognizing how great this trade was.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow