Bengals did not allow Carl Lawson to lead the NFL Free Agency

Cincinnati Bengals chose not to use the franchise brand on the defensive end Carl Lawson, according to NFL Network reporter Ian Rapoport, who adds that the team still hopes to retain the young pass-rusher.

Today was the deadline for NFL teams to use the franchise brand. The Bengals have used the tag only twice since 2013, so it’s not a big surprise that they chose not to use it this time, although Lawson was one of the main candidates for it.

A fifth-year player in 2021, Lawson is one of the best young players in the Bengals squad. In his second season of 16 career games last year, Lawson finished with 5.5 sacks, four tackles for defeat and 32 hitting strikes in total. By Pro-Football-Reference.com, Lawson’s 44 pressures accounted for almost half of the total pressures for the entire Cincinnati defensive line (91).

Looking at the Pro Football Focus scores, Lawson was 13th among the early defenders on the defense note (76.3) and ninth on the pass-rush note (84.9). Lawson was winning as a pass-rusher at a high level, but his 5.5 sacks did not accurately represent that.

Thanks to ESPN’s Created Sacks metric, we found that Lawson was the first defender to win his block in 10.5 of Cincinnati’s 17 sacks. This means that Lawson helped create five additional sacks on top of his own 5.5 quarterback takedowns.

This production and game quality is the reason why many thought that Bengals would mark Lawson to ensure that he did not reach the free agency market in this off-season.

Now, unless a new deal is struck between the two sides, Lawson will become an unrestricted free agent on Monday, when the free agency officially starts, although he cannot sign a contract with a new team until March 17 at 4 pm Eastern Time.

So, do you believe that the Bengals acted correctly in failing to appoint Lawson? Let us know in the poll below and in the comments section.