When Marvin Lewis spoke on keeping Bengals center Russell Bodine this free agency a couple weeks ago, no one should’ve been entirely shocked by the news. The Bengals under Lewis have been notorious for prioritizing value over everything when it came to re-signing their own.
Bodine, despite his many shortcomings, has never missed a start in his four-year career, and will not command anywhere near a high salary on the open market. Those two aspects of Bodine’s profile make him an attractive option, perhaps the favorite, for the position he’s maintained since 2014. This was easy to understand, but not to accept.