Cincinnati Bengals Playoff Team Free Agency Targets: Buffalo Bills

It’s time for the Cincinnati Bengals to begin looking forward to improving the team in free agency, starting with playoff teams such as the Buffalo Bills.

The Cincinnati Bengals’ 2017 season may be long over, but their preparation for 2018 is already well underway. A part of the process for improving their team will undoubtedly be free agency — and there’s no better place to begin than with the players we have most recently seen perform.

With that in mind, this is the first in a series of early free agency primers for each of the teams participating in this year’s playoffs. In them, I’ll be selecting one of the currently scheduled free agents from each team whom Cincinnati should target when the free agency period opens this spring.

As the headline states, we begin with the Buffalo Bills. Who from the surprise AFC Wild Card participants should Cincinnati consider pursuing?

Preston Brown, ILB

Preston Brown is not the first player you will probably think of in terms of Buffalo free agents. There are clearly more widely-known names (as far as Buffalo goes at least) such as Kyle Williams. There are guys who’ve probably played their way into major contracts, like E.J. Gaines.

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Brown is neither of them. He is a holdover from previous Buffalo regimes, more likely sticking around the roster due to his rookie-scale contract than because of exceptional play. Now, that contract is up, and with current Bills head coach Sean McDermott likely looking to continue building this defense into what he envisions, Brown could be allowed to leave with little hassle.

While McDermott may not necessarily see Brown as part of his organization’s future, it isn’t as if he can’t play a quality role for someone — and the Bengals could be that team.

That begins with what happened to Cincinnati’s linebacker corps this season. A group which entered the year as potentially the best unit on the team ended up rarely managing to be at full strength. Vontaze Burfict got suspended for three games during the preseason, and just about everyone among the group was bitten by the injury bug at some point. By the end of the year, Burfict was the only Cincinnati linebacker who wasn’t rated as poor (below 60) by Pro Football Focus Edge.

That is particularly disappointing for them; their corps past Burfict were built by practically every means. Along with Burfict, they had a group built with a long-term veteran (Vincent Rey), a recent high draft pick (Nick Vigil), and a free agent bargain (Kevin Minter); unfortunately, none of those players gave more than meager flashes of decency — if they gave anything positive at all. There may be hope of some level of turnaround from the group as a whole, but if they simply stand pat (which would include re-signing Minter) they are doing a disservice to the team.

That’s where Brown comes in. He isn’t a dynamic presence, but he can be a useful player in the rotation. He is a tackling fiend, picking up 100+ in all four years he’s been in the league. He may not be a turnover machine, but he has usually been able to keep himself in decent position on plays; in many ways, that’s a pretty valuable asset itself. Add in starting experience he has and he could be part of a young-yet-experienced unit.

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An equally important aspect to consider as well: his potential cost. Brown isn’t a premiere player at his position — a position which itself isn’t paid a premium these days anyway. Cincinnati has never been a major spender in free agency under current owner Mike Brown; even with further utilization of this aspect of team building presumably part of what kept Marvin Lewis around, it still appears unlikely that this will include expensive contracts being given to players who weren’t already in the building.

Because of his pedigree and position, Brown probably won’t cost much on the open market. That should allow Cincinnati to have interest in acquiring him, and he could turn into the sort of addition Minter should have been this past season. With better health for the group as a whole, adding Brown has the potential to be an underrated bargain if Cincinnati in fact brings him in.