The Cincinnati Bengals are ready for the 2026 NFL Draft. Cincinnati does not have a pick in the first round after acquiring Dexter Lawrence from New York. The Bengals gave Lawrence a new contract after the trade that includes even more money than he would have earned with the Giants.
ESPN’s Dan Graziano shared the details of Lawrence’s new contract with the Bengals just before the draft.
“Amended Dexter Lawrence contract with Bengals includes $22M in 2026 cash ($11M salary, $11M bonus), $25M in 2027 cash and $23M in 2028 cash,” Graziano wrote on Thursday. “Gets $2M more in ‘26 and $3M more in ‘27 than Giants were scheduled to pay him on previous deal.”
Lawrence is under contract in Cincinnati through the 2028 season thanks to his new deal. He has a $15.33 million cap hit in 2026, which increases over the next two years of the contract.
The Bengals are rumored to have used insights from mock draft exercises to make the decision to land Lawrence in a trade.
“What Cincinnati found was that they only had seven blue-chip players on their board,” NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero said on April 22nd. “When they were going through their mock draft exercises, none of those guys were coming to them at 10.”
The Bengals have significantly improved their defensive line this offseason. They started by signing Boye Mafe to a $60 million contract during NFL free agency. Cincinnati also added Jonathan Allen on a $28 million contract.
Now Cincinnati has a stout defensive line with Lawrence, Mafe, and Allen as its new backbone.
It will be exciting to see how many additional defensive players the Bengals add in the draft this weekend.
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