Cincinnati Bengals Playoff Team Free Agency Targets: Atlanta Falcons

Keeping on with an early look at Cincinnati Bengals free agency targets from playoff teams, a look at who’s worth it from the Atlanta Falcons.

While the free agency period still won’t arrive for a few months, the time for evaluation is wide open — and what better way to determine who a team should go after than seeing them play?

The players on this year’s playoff teams are adding more film that can be used for (or against) their cases for a quality contract with teams around the league; franchises everywhere are surely watching intently. This series is an exercise to determine a few of them who may be worth consideration by Cincinnati once free agency officially opens this spring.

We’ve already covered a player on each of the following teams: the Buffalo Bills, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Carolina Panthers, and the Los Angeles Rams. Now, we look at one from the Atlanta Falcons.

DT Dontari Poe

Do you know one thing which was present in three of the four teams which participated in the Championship Games? A dominant defensive line. Jacksonville, Minnesota, and Philadelphia each made it that far because that area of their team was a game-changing strength. Only one of those teams managed to advance to the Super Bowl though, and part of that is because their biggest strength has an extra layer to it which those other teams lacked: strong depth within the group.

While Jacksonville and Minnesota have high-end talent across their line, they must rely upon a smaller pool of players to always be at their best for the team to perform well. The Jaguars have three linemen who had 900+ snaps this season; Minnesota had only one player reach that level, but ended the year with just five linemen accumulating 400+ snaps.

Philadelphia’s line has been different. Not a single player among their defensive linemen even reached 800 snaps during the regular season, but they did have seven players who picked up between 400-800 snaps. That is outstanding depth, but it goes further than just that as well. Per Pro Football Focus’ grading metrics, every one of those players was at least average in their time on the field; two were average (Derek Barnett, Beau Allen), two were above average (Chris Long, Tim Jernigan), one was high quality (Vinny Curry), and two were elite (Fletcher Cox, Brandon Graham).

Philadelphia’s success even without Carson Wentz shows a blueprint for how other teams can find their own in the future: build an elite-level strength for your team, and spend the necessary resources to give it not only top-end talent but to give it plenty of depth.

Cincinnati isn’t that far off from having their own defensive line be a similar kind of strength. They have elite talents such as Geno Atkins and Carlos Dunlap. Only one player from their group went for over 800 snaps; meanwhile, they had five guys with between 400-800 snaps. Particularly at defensive end, they just finished the season with five different players who were all highly involved in the rotation. This group is already the best unit on the entire team, and pretty much on its own had Cincinnati playing particularly well on defense for most of the season.

If the unit has a weakness, however, it would be the depth at defensive tackle. Atkins was behind only Aaron Donald among interior defenders in terms of his PFF grade in 2017, but he got very little help next to him. Michael Johnson did have some success when he lined up inside on certain passing downs, but it was only a small portion of his total snaps; beyond that, the combination of Ryan Glasgow, Pat Sims, and Andrew Billings was grossly underwhelming. It should improve somewhat even without making moves — Glasgow and Billings should be better in their second seasons of on-field action, while Sims should be allowed to leave in free agency — but resting on their laurels won’t take the group to the next level.

Adding Poe could, however. The defensive tackle joined up with the Falcons in 2017 and had one of the better seasons of his career with them. The question for him will be if the campaign was good enough to earn him the sort of high-dollar, long-term contract he failed to receive last offseason, with Atlanta or elsewhere. He was on the field for 880 snaps, picking up 39 tackles, 2.5 sacks, and 2 pass knockdowns along the way. PFF graded him 81.4 overall for his time on the field, but the individual areas (pass rush, run defense) can in as just average.

If he does get that major contract, you can probably count Cincinnati out. This team has proven over the years that they hate shelling out big contracts for players who aren’t already part of their organization, and even if opening up in free agency may have been part of the contingency needed to keep Marvin Lewis around, lots of money being put towards an outside player who would be joining an already deep unit is a pipe dream.

If that large offer doesn’t come though — and seeing how his contract situation ended last season,that is definitely possible — Cincinnati would be smart to target him. Poe would be smart to consider them as well, by the way. Joining them would not only make the depth of a potentially elite unit better, but it would allow a player who has never fallen below 743 snaps in his career to have the chance to stay fresher throughout games and seasons. As Philadelphia’s Championship Weekend success (plus Minnesota and Jacksonville’s respective failures) showed us, freshness can make an impeccable difference when it matters most. With Poe in tow as well, those young players wouldn’t be rushed into roles they may not be ready for yet (or ever).

Based on his possible cost and Cincinnati’s free agency history, getting Poe may be a long shot. Still, it is the sort of long shot which brings such massive upside that it is worth wishing for. Just about anything can happen in a year; keep those hopes high, Bengals fans.