William Jackson and Carl Lawson appear to be keys for the Cincinnati Bengals this offseason before they head to free agency.
That’s not just based on their high quality of play, either.
Bengals head coach Zac Taylor sat down with The Athletic’s Jay Morrison and had an interesting back-and-forth about Jackson and Lawson:
Do you think it’s possible to re-sign William Jackson and Carl Lawson?
Those are two guys we think highly of, and we want them to be Bengals for certain.
So it’s not an either/or thing? Is there a path to sign both?
Yeah. I think you have to look at the whole scope of things and hopefully, we can work it all out.
Now, this could just be coach-speak. But the Bengals do have about $35.7 million in free cap space and that’s before six potential players they could cut to free up more space.
On paper, the Bengals could afford to sign both and still target a top-tier offensive lineman in free agency, largely because they have the luxury of rostering Joe Burrow on a cheap rookie contract right now.
Jackson and Lawson are vital to what the Bengals want to do. They’ve both been named top free agents at their respective positions and last year Lawson was one of the best in the NFL at what he does.
It takes two parties to make a re-signing happen, but the Bengals would seemingly prefer to build around these two, not replace them and then rebuild.
