The Cincinnati Bengals currently have roughly $23.5 million in free cap space, which gives them plenty of flexibility to add outside free agents and make other general moves over the summer and next season.
Bleacher Report recently detailed ways each team could free up further cap space though and one of the interesting items was restructuring the contract of defensive end Sam Hubbard:
The other money-saving option among the defensive ends is to restructure Sam Hubbard’s current deal. That would clear up to $6.1 million in space and adding a void year would spread the impact over multiple seasons.
Hubbard currently has the seventh-biggest cap hit on the team in 2024 at $10.1 million.
It’s an interesting topic because Hubbard just had a “down” year before undergoing surgery. Alongside names like B.J. Hill ($10.8 million cap hit in 2024), he’s certainly one of those names the team would look at if the need for more cap space came up.
Otherwise, the writeup suggests the usual items like trading Tee Higgins or Trey Hendrickson. But those are extremes and not on the table for the team as realistic when it comes to the franchise-tagged Higgins and now that things are patched over with Hendrickson.
Keep in mind, too, that restructures and even extensions can shift money around to free up space, so a long-term deal could also free up immediate space, too.
