@JoeGoodberry@AGruesser Joe we know that their number one metric as an organization is cashflow positive. Full stop.
They are extremely successful by this metric.
Other franchises goal is to win the Super Bowl, this would be a “nice to have “ on the Bengals mission statement but not the main goal
Around the league, the average year 1 cap hit for free agent contracts was 50.5% of their new APY.
The Bengals did it at an 80.9% rate.
Let's say they were still on the conservative side but not at the extreme like they currently are. Let's say they were at the 55% mark.
They would have saved $12.17M on this year's cap.
Sure, that $12M would still need to be accounted for in future years, but that's just $6M per year and the Bengals have a projected $100M in cap space in 2027.
That extra $12M in cap space could have netted two more quality starters on defense.
$12m is 4% of the current cap.
$6M next year is just 1.8% of next year's projected cap.
The final years $6M would then be 1.7% of that year's projected cap.
4% now vs 3.5% in future years.
And that's the final tweet on how the Bengals structure contracts and how it limits them.