Bengals remaining salary cap space becomes clear with Trent Brown's contract officially on the books
The addition of six unrestricted free agents over the past two weeks have made a dent in the Cincinnati Bengals' remaining salary cap space. Cincinnati has also re-signed five of their own players, and extended tender offers to three more including franchise player and wide receiver Tee Higgins. The roster is currently at 61 players, […]
The addition of six unrestricted free agents over the past two weeks have made a dent in the Cincinnati Bengals' remaining salary cap space.
Cincinnati has also re-signed five of their own players, and extended tender offers to three more including franchise player and wide receiver Tee Higgins.
The roster is currently at 61 players, and with Trent Brown and Trenton Irwin's contract details revealed, we now have an answer as to how much offseason cap space the Bengals have remaining.
Contract details for Trent Brown & Trenton Irwin
Over The Cap posted the cap hits for Brown and Irwin on Monday afternoon. Both players agreed to one-year deals with the Bengals prior to this week.
Brown's cap hit is much smaller than anticipated as he will count for $4,397,059 against the cap. The total value of his deal is worth up to $4,750,000, but it includes $1,000,000 in per game roster bonus incentives that go on the books based off how many games he played last season. Since he played in 11 games in 2023, the cap only accounts for 64% of that $1,000,000.
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Irwin reportedly agreed to a $2,000,000 deal, but it's actually worth up to $1,480,000 with $125,000 in per game roster bonus incentives that shrinks the cap hit ever so slightly to $1,472,647. This is still the second-largest deal for a re-signed Bengals player this offseason when excluding Higgins' franchise tag tender offer, which he hasn't signed yet.
Bengals remaining offseason cap space
The Bengals walk out of the main free agency period with $23,652,449 in cap space. This is calculated by taking the top 51 cap hits on the roster and subtracting it from the club's adjusted cap and their current dead cap liabilities.
In numbers form, it looks like this:
$264,508,488 – $234,330,350 – $6,525,689 = $23,652,449
The Bengals rolled over cap space from the previous season to give them an adjusted cap of $264,508,488, and they're on the books for trading Joe Mixon (-$2,750,000), and releasing Nick Scott (-$2,000,000) and La'el Collins (-$1,666,668). Collins was released last September with two years remaining on his deal.
This does not include the cap space required to sign the Bengals' incoming rookie draft class, or cap space for a 16-player practice squad. Offseason accounting rules also only factors in the top 51 contracts, when all 53 contracts are counted towards the cap during the season.
Cincinnati can still make some moves prior to next month's NFL Draft, but entering April with approximately $20 million in cap space is standard practice for the franchise. Any upcoming signings won't be large contracts by any means.
