The Cincinnati Bengals didn’t have Orlando Brown Jr. in the plans before landing him in free agency.
Sure, they liked the idea of Brown protecting Joe Burrow, but the price range for the guy they projected as the best offensive tackle available would be far out of their comfort zone.
Until it wasn’t.
In a fantastic writeup from Paul Dehner Jr. of The Athletic, Bengals director of pro scouting Steven Radicevic revealed it was Brown’s camp who reached out to the team, not the other way around:
“They reached out and showed some interest the night before we agreed,” Radicevic said. For all the planning, this could only be called a surprise. “Yeah, I would say so.”
One call, one day, one surprise.
“Out of nowhere,” offensive line coach Frank Pollack said. “I’m like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. Really? Wow!’”
That obviously sent Bengals coaches and otherwise back to quickly doing more work on Brown. But the end result was obvious — the team’s interest was real.
From there, all it took was the Cincinnati front office getting creative with big dollars to wrap up Brown, to the tune of a $31 million signing bonus. That, and coaches agreeing he would start at left tackle, not on the right side.
The Joe Burrow effect in all of this plays a part, too. Odds are Brown and his reps could have given a call to any team with ample cap space and asked about his playing left tackle. But the man who has already blocked for Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes wanted to block for Burrow, so it all unfolded in best-case scenario fashion for the Bengals.
