Odell Beckham Jr. will be a member of the Cleveland Browns.
While the Browns were working on pulling off the blockbuster trade, the Cincinnati Bengals were bringing back Bobby Hart, C.J. Uzomah and Preston Brown on new deals.
Normally this wouldn’t be so bad. The Bengals have their star players already in place. They don’t need to make a big gamble.
But they finished dead last in the AFC North behind the Browns a year ago, getting swept by their in-state rival in the process.
The problem for the Bengals is the AFC North might be passing them by. Their free-agent signings before the market opened Wednesday weren’t even their best free agents like Tyler Eifert or — more importantly — Darqueze Dennard.
And to make matters worse, the Bengals took a pair of one-year rentals who didn’t do much or were outright dreadful last season…and gave them massive raises to stay in town.
What exactly the plan is for these Bengals is hard to say. But the Browns have consistently stuck to the rebuild for a few years now, hoarding draft assets, drafting relatively well and clearly getting ready to make massive moves like a Beckham.
The jarring change might show on the field twice a year for the Bengals, who still don’t have one of their top three cornerbacks back under contract despite the other problems hurting the roster. Those corners don’t have to deal with Antonio Brown anymore, but they will have to deal with Beckham while trying to account for a play-extending sophomore quarterback who touched them up for seven touchdown passes over two games last year.
