The Bengals are signing free agent OT Orlando Brown Jr. to a 4 year/$64.092M deal. It comes with a $31M signing bonus, per Tom Pelissero.
To say this move is a surprise would be a complete understatement. The Bengals were not expected to be players in any of the sweepstakes for the tier 1 free agents, but here we are.
The contract is reportedly front loaded, which is something the Bengals do often, as it will be easier to dump the contract later on, should they feel the need to. But what is not even close to being on brand for the Bengals is the signing bonus, which is the largest ever for an offensive lineman.
Brown has been one of the league’s best OT’s since being drafted by the Ravens in 2018. After a couple of years in Baltimore, they traded him to Kansas City after being unable to agree on a contract extension.
Mike Garafolo is reporting that the opportunity to play LT played a big role in Brown’s decision to sign with the Bengals (as did the chance to win). It contradicts the Bengals previous insistence that Jonah Williams would not be moving from his LT spot. Unless they have a trade in the works for Williams, he likely slides over to RT, a position he spent some time playing in college.
The wildcard now is La’el Collins. Last year’s free agent signing earned mixed reviews as the team’s starting RT, before suffering a torn ACL later in the year. He was dubbed a potential cap casualty coming into the offseason, so it will be interesting to see if the Bengals do in fact move on from him. While having a player like him as a depth option would be nice, it would be quite the price to pay for a backup. The Bengals would be able to save around $6M by cutting him, while taking a dead cap hit of around $3M.
Regardless of the domino effects, the Bengals now have their franchise LT.
Current starting OL projection:
LT, Brown – LG, Volson – C, Karras – RG, Cappa – RT, Williams
