It’s back.
Welcome to Year 5 of the Cincinnati Bengals mock offseason exercise.
As a refresher: Everyone has their own ideas of how they would fix the roster for the short- and long-term. Free agency, the draft, cap cuts, extensions, trades and finding bargain pieces combine for hundreds of paths to the opening-day product.
The purpose of this piece is not to tell you which way the Bengals will go, which way they should go or how anybody thinks it unfolds.
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It will merely set the table for all the options and let you try it yourself. This is a choose-your-own-adventure book for roster building.
And it works. In each of the last three years, the final moves the Bengals made when placed into this spreadsheet landed within $4 million of the estimated cap number.
This is a proven template.
• 2022 version
• 2023 version
• 2024 version
Use the dropdown menus to select each position, make cuts, add free agents, insert draft picks, extend players and fill out the top 32 players. The cap will adjust automatically with every move you make.
Fill out the roster and see if you can stay under the cap.
The draft picks are based on Dane Brugler’s two-round mock draft.
Any player outside the top 14 is available as the first-round selection, any outside the top 40 for the second round and anyone not listed qualifies for the third-round pick and beyond.
I recommend reading along in this story as you go through the process of making moves in the spreadsheet for increased clarity (and analysis!).
When you are done and feeling proud — or defeated — send screenshots and commentary of your results via X (@pauldehnerjr), Threads or BlueSky.
The point of this exercise isn’t to pinpoint the exact amount free agents will cost — that’s impossible — or even to show every option on the table when you get into trades, cap gymnastics, friendly structures and free-agent bargains. We’re trying to get in the ballpark of the primary decisions.
We’ve adjusted free-agent prices to be about 20 percent lower than the average annual value projects for each player. This is not because we think the market will be down. This represents that the first-year cap hit on most contracts is usually lower for all deals and was the case on nearly all multi-year free agents the Bengals signed in recent years.
Remember: This. Is. Not. Perfect.
And the cap is barely real anyway. It does matter, though, especially in Cincinnati.
Where this exercise excels is showing the primary part of offseason predictions overlooked in the desire and excitement to sign and pay everyone. There is only so much money and so many positions you can fill. This will give you an idea of what the Bengals can realistically do in 2025 and what every move means as a domino effect for others.
This year is especially challenging to estimate with the potential for a Joe Burrow restructure to dramatically affect the available cap space or structure of an expected massive extension for Ja’Marr Chase capable of swinging the math depending on how negotiations fall.
Keeping Tee Higgins to continue with Ja’Marr Chase and Joe Burrow will be a challenge for the Bengals this offseason. (Sam Greene / Imagn Images)
The true Bengals spend number this year is set at $32 million (math below).
Want to invest every dime in fixing the defense? There are consequences. Want to keep the Big 3 together and extend Trey Hendrickson? You aren’t alone, but there are consequences. Contrary to popular belief, you can’t do it all. But with this tool, you can try.
• On desktop, open the Google Doc here, go to File -> Make a copy and then you are ready to start picking players and staying under the cap.
• On your phone, open the Google Doc here, click the pencil in the top right to edit it on your spreadsheet app (best with Google Sheets). There are three dots next to the file, click on that, then select “Share & export,” next scroll down to “Make a copy.”
• If you prefer downloading an Excel spreadsheet, click here: 2025 Bengals Mock Offseason
Showing the math
The Bengals don’t like to restructure contracts and kick money down the road for future teams to overcome. They always keep money behind to allow room for draft pick allocation, potential injuries, paying practice-squad players, incentives and an assortment of other future expenditures, so the money you would add directly up to the cap number doesn’t apply in the basic math sense.
Traditionally, subtract somewhere around $10-15 million from the cap space to get the true amount the Bengals expect to spend.
People might not agree with this philosophy or math, but it’s merely years of history speaking.
In 2022, the Bengals’ cap hits ended up just $2 million shy of our estimated number. In 2023, they ended up just $2 million over with Burrow’s unpredictable extension putting more on the 2023 cap than expected. Last year, they came in at approximately $4 million shy of the allocated number with a Chase extension ending up falling short from getting done in the final hours.
So, let’s do it again.
The salary cap for this year is projected to land at $272 million, according to Over The Cap.
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Cincinnati’s cap room is based on the top 51 contracts on the roster. Over The Cap estimates $44 million in effective cap space. That’s eighth-most in the NFL.
Take out the traditional subtraction in Bengals math and that’s how I landed at the true spend of $32 million. That’s about average for this exercise, with last year’s influx of television and gambling money substantially bumping up the projected number.
For reference, here are our true spend numbers from the last four editions:
• 2021: $29 million
• 2022: $37 million
• 2023: $25 million
• 2024: $55 million
Note: The effective cap space is approximately $3.5 million less than the total team cap space ($47.5 million) because it accounts for the minimum salaries needed to fill the roster. Those are necessary in this exercise of paying the most prominent 33 positions with an assumption of interchangeable low-cost options and draft picks for the rest.
Cuts
A few positions for the Bengals are set and you have the starters locked in place without the potential of being a cap casualty.
Cap savings figures are set as pre-June 1 designations since most Bengals cuts have been done that way.
My stipulation for an option to cut is a move that would save at least $3 million against the cap and take on less than $5 million in dead money, meaningful markers in Bengals’ roster history.
We have never seen a year like this for cuts in the history of this sheet. Making all the potential cuts, the Bengals can add $50.2 million to this year’s cap space, a seismic windfall if they aggressively cut veteran fat on the roster.
They are unlikely to make all those moves, but a minimum of $30 million in extra space looks inevitable.
Trades
A new feature in 2025! The situations of Tee Higgins and Trey Hendrickson made this option necessary.
You can choose to trade Hendrickson and add his $16.2 million to the cap space while acquiring an extra second-round pick. This would be a Bengals option if they come to terms that the space and picks would be the more effective option rather than a potential extension Hendrickson will likely be seeking considering how drastically he has outperformed his current deal.
There is an extension option with Hendrickson that adds $3 million available and the option to force him to play out the last year of his current deal. Your choice, although the beauty of the spreadsheet is you never have to deliver the bad news to Hendrickson’s face.
The option for Higgins is a tag-and-trade scenario where he is dealt for an extra second-round pick. There is no change in cap for this move.
Once picking your cuts and if you want to make any trades, you have arrived at the dollar amount for the total cap space remaining and a new number of positions to fill. Congratulations! Let’s advance to the next level of the offseason. Time to spend.
Extensions and The Big 3
The financial chess the Bengals need to play to keep Burrow, Chase and Higgins together makes for the largest variable of the 2025 offseason.
The Bengals essentially never do contract restructures (making this sheet so inherently predictive) but Burrow is again the exception to the rule. Paying Higgins and Chase while fixing the defense could require Burrow to move money around and the quarterback has suggested he is willing to do as much.
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Likely, a Chase extension won’t affect his 2025 cap number. He’s playing under the fifth-year option ($21.8 million) which is already baked into the team’s cap space. Like Burrow, an extension of that magnitude would probably not kick in until 2026 on the cap. The cash payout would be the sizable chunk coming immediately, but it is irrelevant for this exercise.
I didn’t make a Burrow restructure option because it’s all too unpredictable but feel free to figure the possibility into any equation as you go along.
Higgins is included as any other free agent but with the added option to tag and trade. Forcing Higgins to play on the tag does not sound like a viable option for 2025.
There is also a Hendrickson extension option that adds to his 2025 number with an assumption he would receive a significant raise in adding a year or two to this deal, if he chose to accept it.
Trey Hendrickson outplayed his contract by leading the NFL with 17.5 sacks in 2024. (Gary A. Vasquez / Imagn Images)
This world is extremely complicated and murky. The Bengals surely are concerned about cash elements, but there’s no real way to integrate them here.
This exercise — and the Bengals — have never faced a riddle quite like this one.
Talent acquisition
Who do you want to re-sign? All the Bengals free agents have the valuation placed on them by a combination of OTC, PFF or our own estimation. These are tough to pinpoint, but we’ve done our best to curate the ballpark value.
Another reminder for emphasis, the numbers skew lower than the AAV projection because the Bengals traditionally work the actual cap hit for the first year to be much less than the average value of the contract.
Pick the players you want back in stripes by looking for them at the top of every drop-down box. They will all be options along with the cost. They cost you nothing against the cap if they are already under contract.
Players who potentially could change positions are listed as an option at multiple spots. For example, Ted Karras would be the overwhelming choice to play center, but if you wanted to kick him over to guard and sign Ryan Kelly for center, that option is available.
Free agents are listed as options in the drop-down box. You can’t possibly list them all, especially when you consider all the veteran cuts expected over the next two months, however, there is a representative for most levels of the pay scale.
Draft day
The draft picks won’t affect the bottom line of the cap, as they are already in the equation of the money traditionally chopped off the total by the team in the very beginning.
You get four rounds to make a difference.
Realistically, you could argue that the first four picks should all be in the rotation somewhere. The rest would slot to the back of the roster with a chance at a greater impact next year or beyond.
So, you get to pick a player of your choice in each round. Type the name into the draft slot. Then find the corresponding round in the drop-down menu of his position. We’ll operate under the assumption the team doesn’t add picks and stands pat with its selections (No. 17 in the first round, No. 49 in the second and No. 81 in the third).
Again, using Brugler’s two-round mock to dictate the player universe, I cut some slack since we are in the early stages of evaluation season. You can’t take anybody listed in the top 14. There’s plenty of leeway in the second round, taking only the top 40 off the board. Then I was really in the giving mood leaving everyone else for the remaining selections.
If you added a pick via trade for Higgins or Hendrickson, the same second-round rules apply. No cheating!
In summary
It’s impossible to be correct on all these contract figures, even those closest to every player can’t be certain where the market will land. This also doesn’t put into play the movement we will see from other teams cutting their veterans. There are so many other ways this offseason can turn.
The importance of going through this exercise is to provide a real feel for the decisions and priorities at the core of the entire offseason.
Where can they skimp? What’s the value of loyalty? How many players can they even afford to sign before they leave the cupboard bare at other positions?
Notably, this illustrates what keeping the Big 3 truly sacrifices in 2025.
It’s easy to say pay the players, but understanding the true limitations through the eyes of the front office is critical in judging success and strategy.
(Top photo: Ian Johnson / Getty Images)
