Well time for the best time to be a Bengals fan, the offseason. Not really much to say great about 2025. Offense was mid and defense was terrible.
Players stock up: Amarius Mims has turned into a nearly elite RT, Dax Hill and DJ Turner at corners are good, the rookies all played A LOT, BJ Hill showed good value after signing a big contract, Myles Murphy finally showed he can be a starting DE in the league
Defense Needs(LB, DT, DE, FS, NCB): A lot. Both LBs were rookies but despite being older guys who should be ready to play were bad and could be upgraded. NT TJ Slaton was brought in to be a good NT and was also bad. Myles Murphy probably showed enough to be DE2 but you have to find somebody opposite him(really sucks to have 2 first rounders here and it still be a need.) Also need a FS and nickel CB with those being empty now.
Offense needs(RG, Slot WR): Should be optimistic here. Fairchild and Mims seem to be great young guys with good enough play from Brown and Karras but really need to solidify RG. Rivers could develop but not sure you want to depend on that. Yoshi just aint gonna cut it at slot receiver but with the defensive needs I doubt they have room to fix that. TE is what it is, Gesicki got his money, Sample blocks, and All could be back. Give Burrow a RG and a defense.
Free Agency Outlook: A good word I saw was the Bengals were “overwhelmed” with Burrow/Higgins/Chase and just couldn’t do much more. We can talk all we want about the failures of last offseason but it is what it is. Bengals now have $77M in cap space I expect them to unload it all. You can probably give them another $6M for cut Slaton. All in all you can expect $70M in cap additions before they have to resign a couple guys like Dax/DJ Turner. The other good news is their needs are mostly at non premium positions. S, LB, RG, NT, Nickel shouldn’t break the bank and they were BAD at most of these spots. DE will be tricky and you don’t want to eat up half the cap space at one spot with so many needs.
Draft Needs(DL, LT with OBJ in last year, WR, Caleb Downs, CB?)-The most Bengals pick ever would be a LT to develop behind OBJ before he leaves and you shift his money Mims, I don’t want to buzzkill it and spoil the pick but I imagine that’s the plan. DE is really tricky because you really don’t want Murphy/Stewart and another first rounder but it’s a need, a DT could help. I think a slot receiver on day 2 could be a lock. Caleb Downs is such a no brainer at 10 but the problem is the position has literally nobody right now and you don’t want to go into draft night entirely dependent on him getting to 10. If they could lock him in today I think they would but unfortunately they probably get a veteran to play next to Battle.
