The Cincinnati Bengals went into the offseason with one clear goal — improve the offensive line.

And that's exactly what they did.

Cincinnati pounced early, quickly signing guard Alex Cappa and guard/center Ted Karras to lucrative deals. Then the Bengals patiently waited on La'el Collins, wined him and dined him, and signed him to a three-year deal.

That's about as aggressive as a team can get in free agency.

One anonymous NFL executive, however, doesn't think the Bengals made their offensive line that much better.

Here's what the anonymous NFL executive had to say to The Athletic this week:

“They will be good because they are pretty good on defense and have good weapons on offense, but I don’t know if the O-line is that much better,” another exec said. “Karras, who is kind of a journeyman. Alex Cappa is OK. La’el Collins will help them. I think they are better, but it’s marginally better.”

This is a terrible take and I almost wonder if it's an executive from an AFC North rival.

The Bengals' offensive line was historically bad last season. Star quarterback Joe Burrow was sacked 70 times (that includes 19 times in the playoffs). To put that number in perspective, former Houston Texans quarterback David Carr has the unfortunate honor of holding the all-time record for most sacks taken in a season (76 in 2002).

Carr's record doesn't include the playoffs, so the Bengals' offensive line wasn't quite as bad as the Texans in 2002 (though Burrow deserves a lot of credit for avoiding numerous sacks). But you can still see from those numbers just how bad Cincinnati was at protecting Burrow last season.

Any improvement for the Bengals this offseason was going to be huge.

I'm just not sure how someone looks at Cincinnati's three additions and thinks anything else but "that's a huge improvement".

Legendary quarterback Tom Brady wanted Cappa back with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2022. Cappa, however, chose Burrow and the Bengals.

Karras has played five total seasons with the New England Patriots (you don't last that long in New England unless you can play).

And Collins was one of the highest-graded offensive tackles in the NFL last season.

That's about as good as any Bengals fan could've hoped for this offseason.

Cincinnati was already a Super Bowl-caliber team when they had a bad offensive line. Now they have a respectable offensive line…and that should scare the rest of the AFC.

Who knows, maybe it scares the NFL executive who threw shade this week at the Bengals' free-agent additions.

Featured image via Sam Greene-USA TODAY Sports