The obvious free agent match for the Bengals makes sense on paper, but the details and hurdles tell a different story
Free agent linebacker Bobby Wagner signing with the Cincinnati Bengals makes sense. The chances of the fit becoming a reality, however, are more complicated than fans want it to be.
The Cincinnati Bengals are a few weeks away from training camp with linebacker Bobby Wagner still available in free agency. Analysts and fans continue connecting the former All-Pro linebacker to Cincinnati as a potential solution to the team’s most glaring roster question.
CBS Sports’ Brian DeArdo recently tabbed the Bengals as the ideal match for Wagner, and the reasoning checks out on the surface.
Barrett Carter and Demetrius Knight Jr. are the starters at linebacker. Neither second-year player has truly proven himself, and Wagner could provide veteran leadership, competition, or an outright upgrade at a position that plagued the Bengals last year.
I completely understand why Wagner to Cincy makes sense. The chances of the fit becoming a reality, however, are more complicated than fans want it to be.
Bobby Wagner may be too pricey for the Bengals
Wagner just played on a one-year, $9 million contract for the Washington Commanders, a deal Washington chose not to extend as the team looks to get younger at his position. Wagner still had a productive 2025 season. He’s not the same player he was in the 2010s, but he can start for a defense that needs veteran leadership at the position.
After the year he just had, I don’t imagine Wagner’s price drops that far below, or drops at all, from what he made last season. He could easily command at least $10 million this year if he signs before Week 1.
Cincinnati has $16,472,050 in remaining offseason salary cap space to work with. The Bengals showed earlier this offseason that they’re comfortable with creative cap management when they re-signed Joe Flacco to a one-year, $6 million deal that included two void years to spread out the cap hit. They’ve become more willing to pull that lever in recent years. In negotiating a deal with Wagner, they could lock in a cap hit closer to $7 million by adding a void year or two and push a few million into 2027 and 2028.
Paying Wagner at least $10 million also means you’re starting him, and I don’t think the Bengals are in that market right now.
Cincinnati has struck out and stayed content at linebacker
Cincinnati had linebacker targets in free agency and were unsuccessful at signing any of them. The Bengals were also open to drafting one relatively early. Neither avenue produced the result they wanted. They lost out on some of those battles, and didn’t muster up enough dough to get it done in free agency.
Fast forward a few months and the salary cap picture looks very different. Restructuring Joe Burrow’s contract wasn’t designed to create room for Wagner. It serves to fit extensions for their own. I think the Bengals want to reserve the majority of their remaining space to extend DJ Turner II, and possibly Dax Hill, Myles Murphy, and Chase Brown.
Even if Cincy was willing to fit a contract for Wagner, more important deals may prevent it from happening altogether.
How Wagner could end up becoming a Bengal
Here’s what I think could open the door. If Carter and Knight go through training camp and the preseason, and at least one of them proves he’s not up to the level the Bengals need, Wagner would become more of a necessity from the club’s perspective.
This would be reminiscent of how Dalton Risner entered the picture last year. Cincinnati realized it needed another guard to start the season to fill out the offensive line room. Risner signed a near-minimum deal late in the offseason because he didn’t have many other options. He wasn’t brought in to start, but he ended up becoming a starter the Bengals relied on at the end of the year.
We don’t know if Wagner’s situation is the same as Risner’s was last year. He could be mulling options and sign the best offer when training camp begins. He could be wanting to skip camp altogether and join up right before the season like Risner did.
But the Bengals are fully backing Carter and Knight. I think they’re genuinely committed to seeing what those two can do during the ramp-up to the regular season.
If things look shaky, and they very possibly could, then Wagner has to be in consideration as the best available linebacker on the market. He wouldn’t be the most affordable option, but he would be the strongest short-term fix for a problem Cincinnati needs to solve one way or another.