Are the Bengals on the right side of free agency?

INDIANAPOLIS, IN - MAR 01: Duke Tobin, general manager of the Cincinnati Bengals speaks to reporters during the NFL Draft Combine at the Indiana Convention Center on March 1, 2022 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Michael Hickey/Getty Images) | Getty Images Many Cincinnati Bengals fans have called out the front office’s inactivity past their initial wave of moves. However, dissenters will often point to how unpredictable free agents can be when brought in from other teams, or the need to keep a healthy cap.

To make more moves, the team could easily restructure quarterback Joe Burrow’s contract to push his cap hit down the road. That can create problems down the road if you don’t keep kicking it down the line. ESPN’s Bill Barnwell recently did a deep dive on how effective big free agents usually are for their new teams.

We are going to talk about this excerpt here, but the whole article is well worth your time and very informative. To summarize a bit. He ranked free agents with a numerical value between 0 (the worst) and 6 (the best), factoring in things like how well they played, how long they played, and how important they were to their new teams.

(Again, I am summarizing) How often do top free agents actually pan out? Not as often as teams would like. The average grade for these 500 free agents [Top 50 from each season the past 10 years based on AAV] landed at 2.