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 to another episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast.

I'm your host, Jake.

Let's go along with your

host, James Rupin. It's the weekend mailbag, James, and usually in the offseason, we go right

into the mailbag, but there is some pressing breaking news today to talk about, and it's not

necessarily breaking news, but Carl Lawson talked to Paul Daner Jr. from The Athletic

and a podcast that came out on Thursday.

And maybe the doomsaying went a little bit too far.

He described the Bengals as a frontrunner.

He described his relationship with Cincinnati is very good.

He said that all of the cryptic tweets had nothing to do with his impending free agency.

And he even backed it up by saying like, oh yeah, that one where I said, they better not do it

was about an anime that he watches, had nothing to do with the franchise tag. So it sounds like

the door still very much open to Carl Lawson, but also sounds like he's very aware that the team

has needs on their offensive line, is aware of their cap situation, and is aware of his interest

level if he does get to the open market. And that's the key and really the concern.

I never thought that Carl wasn't interested in necessarily coming back to the Bengals or the

Bengals weren't open to bringing him back, but it's got to be at a price that both guys,

you know, both parties agree to obviously, right?

Well, there are 31 other teams that are

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