You are Locked on Bengals, your daily Cincinnati Bengals podcast, part of the Locked On

Podcast Network, your team every day.

What up Bengals fans and welcome back to the Locked on Bengals podcast.

I'm your host, Jake Liscoe, along with your host,

James Rupin. We come to you recording this on Free Agency Eve, midday on Sunday. A lot can happen

between now and the open of the legal tampering window on Monday at noon Eastern. Today's episode is brought to you by BiltBar. Go to

Biltbar.com and use promo code locked 15 and you'll get 15% off. Your next order. James, let's

start the show today by talking about the cat math that the Bengals have published by way of Jeff

Hobson on bengals.com by way of Jeff Hobson on Bengals.com compared to what

Jeff Hobson's article said last year and what that might tell us about what the Bengals are

actually willing to spend. Because according to Hobson, I think we've got a very literal

interpretation of the current state of the Bengals salary cap coming from the team,

which indicates that they have about $20 million to spend on free agents, which obviously is

incredibly conservative, and sets aside $11 million for stuff like rookie deals and injuries, et cetera, et cetera. So I think

this is not what they're actually going to spend, James. You look at last year, Hobson's

same piece said $25 million. They blow that away with Reader and Wains alone. I do think that

perhaps this is, like I said, a very strictly literal interpretation of the

current state of the salary cap without adjusting for things like offsets when you add

players over a certain number that push other guys off of what counts against your active cap.

Obviously it doesn't account for any cap cuts that we might see.

I think just a very literal interpretation.

And it's just such a shock every year when Bengals fans read this number.

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