The Cincinnati Bengals have earned a mixed reception to the front office's approach this offseason.
Inking Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins to big contract extensions proved polarizing, though most of the negative reactions surely came from non-fans.
But overall, Cincinnati's timid approach to free agency has even Bengals fans antsy with the draft approaching.
From a more statistical sense, the Bengals are a worse team right now, too, at least in the model prepared by the Athletic's Austin Mock. His projection model that analyzes expected points added or lost for each team puts the Bengals near the bottom with minus-nine points added this offseason.
The Bengals don't rank poorly enough to fit in the "five biggest losers" section, not when teams like the San Francisco 49ers are sitting on minus-38.5. It's also worth mentioning that the model strictly looks at 2025 only, so things like length of contracts aren't part of the equation.
Even so, it's just one more data point that helps to suggest, as a whole, the Bengals are possibly paying more for a similar or even worse team right now -- at least before the draft.
This article originally appeared on Bengals Wire: Bengals' offseason doesn't look so good by this metric
