Cincinnati Bengals: Cordy Glenn trade a big win overall

Looking back at the Cincinnati Bengals trade for former Bills tackle Cordy Glenn earlier this offseason, and what it means for the team going forward.

Coming into this offseason, there were plenty of needs for the Cincinnati Bengals to fill if they had any hopes of returning to the playoffs in 2018. None cast a larger shadow than a putrid offensive line.

The past two years have seen the team descend into an ever-deepening abyss of pathetic blocking displays, and it had left the team with just one position on their line even close to being settled heading into this offseason. Clint Boling has proven to be at least an average contributor at left guard, but the team was as far from an answer as possible at every other slot along the line.

No spot was subject to more poor play and ridicule than the tackles — for good reason. Cedric Ogbuehi is a perfect example of a draft bust. His fellow draft mate Jake Fisher has perhaps been even worse, and last November was diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat, putting his career in jeopardy. Andre Smith was originally brought back with the expectation of switching him to guard, but the failings of Ogbuehi and Fisher forced him to take snaps at tackle (where he also failed to do well). Eric Winston was maybe the best of the group, and he’s not had anything close to a good season of blocking since about 2012.

There was no excusable way for Cincinnati to enter 2018 without making a major move at tackle. Between the draft and free agency, there were plenty of potential choices to make. Those areas each had flaws, however.

Free agency would require Cincinnati to pay a hefty sum for even simply competent players (much less stars), and the market wasn’t exactly full of them to begin with (only three nominal tackles were deemed worthy of multi-year deals, and only two earned more than $5 million in total value over the life of their deals). The draft would be a cheaper option cash-wise, but successful linemen prospects have become less of a sure thing this past decade — and Cincinnati has already attempted that path to no avail with Ogbuehi.

Trading for Glenn didn’t even seem like something on the radar, but it is undoubtedly the best outcome Cincinnati could have hoped for. Glenn isn’t thought of as an elite tackle, but for the majority of his career he has been a very good one. Going by Pro Football Focus Edge‘s grading metrics, from 2013-16 Glenn was between an 82.3-85.3 all four years (0-100 scale).

You would think that would be enough for a team to feel comfortable continuing forward, but Buffalo apparently didn’t think so. Whether due completely to an injury-addled year (68.1 PFF grade, played in only five games) or the Buffalo’s strange propensity to want to move on from any halfway-decent player who was on the team prior to 2017, the team was quick to put their left tackle up for trade.

The trade ended up being about as good of a transaction as Cincinnati could have hoped for. To acquire what should be an above average left tackle, all Cincinnati had to do was move down nine spots in the first round. Not only that, but they moved up 29 spots from their sixth round selection as well.

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Now, Cincinnati not only has their hopeful left tackle for years to come (he’s signed for the next three seasons), but still have a first rounder to spend on other needs (another lineman or a linebacker, perhaps?). They also have a better late-round pick to spend on a prospect — or to use in any potential trade-ups in earlier rounds. Plus, even if things go south and Glenn doesn’t work out, the team can move on from his contract with zero dead cap penalties after this season.

No matter what happens, Cincinnati came away from this trade a clear winner, but if it works out as hoped the team will have solved the issue they caused when they let Andrew Whitworth leave in free agency last season and be set at left tackle for years to come.