NFL Free Agency rumor: Bengals chased Kevin Zeitler before Ravens caught him

The Bengals appeared as onlookers for most of Monday as free will began to be tampered with. They were able to come to an agreement with defensive end Trey Hendrickson late last night, but the position they need to attack more than any other offensive line was chosen fairly consistently from the start.

One name many fans were enthusiastic about was former Bengal guard Kevin Zeitler who became available after falling victim to a cap for the New York Giants. However, he and the Baltimore Ravens quickly reached an agreement early Monday morning. Turns out it wasn’t due to a lack of testing from Cincinnati.

Looks like the Bengals maybe didn’t want to pay too early for a guard who might end up being slightly better than a player than what can be picked up in the next few days through a free agency.

It can be very frustrating for Bengals fans to watch this game before free agency has officially started (as far as the NFL office is concerned). However, even last year the team waited until the second day to start moving. The reality is that there are still a lot of veteran offensive line options to add to the squad. It remains to be seen which offensive linemen the team actually talks to, as this is the first time we’ve really heard of them making an offer to a player so far.

The Cincinnati front office and coaches have spoken out on improving the state of the offensive line this offseason, but so far fans have seen the big names get picked up early. The team would certainly have benefited from the arrival of one of these players, but the offseason is far from over at this point, and they could still add more veterans. They have more leeway to do this without committing a ton of money to just one big name.

Patience can only be preached for such a long time, and this franchise hasn’t capitalized on doubt too much over the past couple of seasons, and they haven’t done each other a favor by betting on a bad offensive line to improve afterward. have written the future. of the franchise. The result ended predictably with Joe Burrow suffering from a serious injury.

The fact remains that Cincinnati need to add a few veterans to their offensive line and then use some of their higher draft picks to improve it as well. Fans haven’t seen much evidence that they do, but missing out on a player many fans were enthusiastic about isn’t a reason it’s already a failure.