{"id":722720,"date":"2026-02-02T01:36:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T01:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/722720\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T01:36:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T01:36:20","slug":"cincinnati-bengals-urged-to-sign-all-pro-defender-in-free-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/722720\/","title":{"rendered":"Cincinnati Bengals urged to sign All-Pro defender in free agency"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cincinnati Bengals urged to sign All-Pro defender in free agency <\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Defense has been a persistent problem for the Cincinnati Bengals<\/a> in recent seasons, and they\u2019re being urged to do something about it.<\/p>\n

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Pro Football Focus\u2019 Bradley Locker recently\u00a0listed one free agent<\/a>\u00a0that every team should pursue over the offseason, and for the Bengals, that pick was linebacker Devin Lloyd.<\/p>\n

Bengals urged to sign linebacker Devin Lloyd in free agency<\/p>\n

Lloyd is coming off of the first Pro Bowl and Second Team All-Pro nods of his career, and would represent a clear upgrade for Cincinnati in the middle of the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Bengals have no choice but to tweak their defensive personnel this season after finishing 29th\u00a0in EPA per play and 28th\u00a0in success rate. Although all three levels could use boosts, Cincinnati ranked dead last in overall grade at linebacker \u2014 which Lloyd could fix in one fell swoop,\u201d Locker wrote.<\/p>\n

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More:\u00a0Bengals predicted to land two-time Super Bowl champion in free agency<\/a><\/p>\n

“…\u00a0With the seventh-most cap space currently available, the Bengals could use a defensive splash, and the 27-year-old would definitely qualify.”<\/p>\n

In 15 regular season games for the Jacksonville Jaguars<\/a> this past season, Lloyd recorded 81 tackles, including six for a loss, seven passes defended, five interceptions, 1.5 sacks and one fumble recovery.<\/p>\n

His productive play probably made the Jaguars regret declining his fifth-year option<\/a> prior to the season. If they had picked the option up, they could have had Lloyd back in Jacksonville at a reasonable rate next season.<\/p>\n

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Instead, they’ll likely lose him<\/a> in free agency.\u00a0But, Jacksonville’s loss can be another team’s gain. Maybe that team will be the Bengals.<\/p>\n

More NFL news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cincinnati Bengals urged to sign All-Pro defender in free agency originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":722721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2053],"tags":[228,10051,227,256,2296,5412,7,4609,194,125,6,410],"class_list":["post-722720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cincinnati-bengals","tag-bengals","tag-bradley-locker","tag-cincinnati","tag-cincinnati-bengals","tag-cincinnatibengals","tag-devin-lloyd","tag-football","tag-free-agency","tag-free-agent","tag-jacksonville-jaguars","tag-nfl","tag-pro-football-focus"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115998477063802275","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=722720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/722721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=722720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=722720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=722720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}