Super Bowl LX Matchup Features Teams That Spent Much Differently Than Cincinnati Entering 2025 Season

CINCINNATI — You gotta spend money to win in the NFL based on the 2026 NFL playoff results. According to Spotrac, the Patriots and Seahawks spent a ton of money this past offseason to completely flip things from being out of the playoffs to in the Super Bowl.

The Patriots ranked first in total free agent contract value inked last offseason, while the Seahawks ranked fourth. Minnesota and the Giants ranked second and third, but they had first-year-starting quarterbacks guiding their disappointing seasons in 2025. Spending a lot of money in free agency isn't always the right move, but it can pay off massively if you have a solid quarterback situation already.

The Bengals were 30th on the 2025 list ($41.75 million spent on free agents) after using the start of free agency to focus on extending Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins. Now, they have top 10 projected cap space to almost entirely throw at their bottom-three defense.

The time to spend is now with Joe Burrow heading into his Age-30 season with static cap hit percentages on his contract for the rest of the deal (No year takes up more than 16.31% of the salary cap through 2029). Cincinnati needs to spend and pair that with better drafting to get the roster talent back to where it was earlier this decade.

"Again, year over year, you can't build your team in free agency. It's just not a sustainable process," Bengals director of player personnel Duke Tobin said recently. "You have to have your young guys come on. You have to. And whether it's a one-year progression, two-year progression, or three-year progression, those guys have to come on. If they don't come on, that's my fault. We've taken the wrong guys. We're no longer drafting guys for second contracts and so forth. We need guys who come in and can give us some help right away and then grow into bigger roles quickly. We need that. That's what every team needs."

Teams can start agreeing to free-agency deals with players on March 9.

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