We’ve embarked on a series looking at free agents the Cincinnati Bengals should pursue on teams which sat out the 2017 playoffs. Next up: the Baltimore Ravens.
The NFL offseason is in full swing, ladies and gentlemen. An exciting Super Bowl ended the 2017 playoffs with a bang only a few ago, but it isn’t long until we see 2018 truly begin. Only a few weeks away is March 14, the beginning of free agency. Now is the time to figure out who is worth pursuing for and from every team in regards to the Cincinnati Bengals.
We’ve already gone through the postseason participants from this past season and who Cincinnati should look at coming off of their rosters. But now the focus is switching to the teams that sat out of the playoffs.
We’ve previously taken a look at players from the Oakland Raiders, Denver Broncos, Los Angeles Chargers, Indianapolis Colts, Houston Texans, and Cleveland Browns. Now we view a player from the rivals Cincinnati miraculously kept out of the playoffs last season: the Baltimore Ravens.
Brandon Boykin, CB
Boykin has had a very befuddling career. He bagan with the Eagles in 2012, and for three seasons was a really good player. Just check out his 2013: 47 tackles, two forced fumbles, six interceptions (one returned for a touchdown), 16 pass knockdowns, and an 88.7 Pro Football Focus Edge grade in a 617 snap season. His next season was a step down (one interception, nine pass knockdowns, 82.1 PFF grade), but still plenty useful.
His career took a drastic, unexpected turn from there. Out of nowhere, the seemingly successful corner all of a sudden was traded across the state to Pittsburgh for a mere fifth round pick. This appeared to be a steal for a team in need of cover men, but then he proceeded to barely get on the field (274 snaps) despite playing pretty well when he actually was given an opportunity (PFF grade: 80.2; one forced fumble, one fumble recovery, one interception, five pass knockdowns).
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Despite plenty of evidence as to why he should be successful, he has only continued to fall. He wasn’t brought back to the Steelers after 2015, eventually having to sign for under $1 million with the Carolina Panthers in late March 2016. The Panthers would then cut him in May, before Chicago tossed him another cheap offer in late July. Despite being under contract he wouldn’t play a single snap for them, nor would he in 2017 when the Ravens signed him to a similar deal.
What in the world has been the issue? In one form or another, it appears to be injury-related. A torn pectoral caused his time in Chicago to be essentially just an IR stint, but the big issue is about his hip. Back in 2016, rumors of a career-threatening hip problem dripped out of Pittsburgh. True or not, it definitely was why the Steelers didn’t want him back; it easily could have been what caused Philadelphia to look elsewhere so quickly despite his early success, and why Carolina terminated their deal with him a couple months in.
All this worry and concern may have tanked his perceived value, but there’s reason to believe he is worth a shot by a team like Cincinnati. His size limits him to just being a slot corner, but it isn’t as if that sort of player is valueless. While those hip concerns have damaged how he’s viewed, he’s still pretty young (27). When he has played he’s been good, and should a team actually believe in him he could very well do so again.
At the least, he’ll be cheap — always a plus for notoriously stingy Cincinnati front office. That alone is worth adding to the mix, but is only part of the picture. This team is also not exactly deep at corner now. William Jackson III proved to have shutdown capabilities, but there isn’t much behind him, for now or the future.
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Darqueze Dennard is the only other positively graded corner from 2017, but he’s on the final year of his rookie contract and has just one useful season under his belt. Dre Kirkpatrick is getting paid big money, but showed out poorly in the first year of that contract and probably won’t ever be worth what he’s being paid. Adam Jones is no longer good enough on the field for a roster spot — and that’s before listing out all his off-field problems. Josh Shaw was used as a slot corner/safety, but played much worse than we saw in a surprising 2016.
Moves need to be made in the secondary, and Boykin would be a cheap addition with upside potential in a role that definitely needs improvement. It might not work, but if he can return to his Philadelphia form he would be the sort of free agency success story which helps elevate a team beyond initial expectations.