Orlando Brown Jr. was allowed to walk by the Chiefs and now the offensive tackle has landed with one of Kansas City’s biggest rivals, the Bengals.
The market for offensive tackle Orlando Brown Jr. was a bit perplexing as NFL free agency officially began on Wednesday. The Kansas City Chiefs elected to not franchise tag their left tackle and seemingly replaced him by signing Jawaan Taylor. Moreover, there hadn’t been much word about where Brown could potentially be headed or which teams were interested.
Now he has a landing spot and a new deal, and it’s one that will only make the emerging rivalry between Joe Burrow’s Cincinnati Bengals and Patrick Mahomes’ Chiefs even saucier.
Per NFL insider Tom Pelissero, the Bengals are signing Brown to a four-year, $64.092 million deal with a monster $31 million signing bonus and, as reported, with much of the money being front-loaded in the contract.
NFL rumors: Former Chiefs OT Orlando Brown Jr. joins rival Bengals
This is surely going to add even more fire to the budding rivalry between the Chiefs and Bengals as he’ll now be protecting Burrow instead of Mahomes. However, Cincinnati was able to give Brown money and, more importantly, the position he wanted.
Much had been made in recent days about many teams around the NFL seeing Brown as a right tackle. The veteran remained adamant, though, that he wanted to play on the left side, which Mike Garafolo is reporting is the plan in Cincinnati.
Brown is an undeniable upgrade for the Bengals, though, as they could now slot Jonah Williams or La’el Collins inside to guard alongside Alex Cappa and Ted Karras on the interior, making the line deeper and overall stronger. That’s a key to the long-term success of Burrow and this offense.
And it should only make the future matchups against the Chiefs that much more fun to watch.
