The Cincinnati Bengals have a complicated cap space tightrope to walk this offseason.
While the front office has always been excellent at getting big cap hits out of the way early, boasting very little in dead space and other cap feats, it’s not too easy to juggle Joe Burrow’s extension, a big list of their free agents, outside free agents, future extensions and more.
One of the key components that tends to get overlooked when chatting about a team’s cap space? The cash a team must set aside for things like incoming rookie classes and tenders.
Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com provided numbers for this year:
“Next month’s draft pool is an estimated $8 million, the practice squad is an estimated $3.5 million, as are the tenders to restricted free agent Joe Bachie and exclusive rights free agents Mitchell Wilcox and Clay Johnston.”
That’s a big chunk of change for a team with roughly $35 million in free space right now. It’s also part of the reason brass such as Duke Tobin have cautioned that this won’t be like the last few years in free agency when the team made major splashes with big names.
Cincinnati’s cap situation this offseason is very manageable and if the past is any sign, they’ll handle it just fine. But don’t forget pesky little details such as these when trying to do some on-the-fly math.
