A.J. Green era in Cincinnati over after 10 seasons

Green, who is heading into his 11th year in the NFL, played on an $18 million franchise tag last season, hoping to prove worthy of a long-term contract to finish his career with the Cincinnati team that drafted him fourth overall in 2011.

Despite hamstring issues in training camp, Green finally stayed healthy through all 16 games, marking his first full season since 2017, but his diminished role in Zac Taylor’s offense seemed to indicate re-signing Green wasn’t going to be a priority for the team this offseason.

“Anything is possible,” Green said when asked ahead of the season finale if he thought he was preparing for his last game. “… Whatever happens after the season is already in God’s plans, so I’m not really worried about what’s going to happen.”\

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Green missed seven games in 2018 because of a toe injury and was sidelined all of 2019 because of an ankle injury suffered the first day of training camp. Because of that, the team wasn’t interested in signing him to a long-term deal like he wanted and instead he ended up with a franchise tag to lock him in for somewhat of a trial season to see how productive the 32-year-old still could be.

With rookie Tee Higgins stepping up alongside Tyler Boyd as the team’s go-to targets, Green often found himself on an island in his only year on the field under Taylor. Green finished with 47 catches on 104 targets for a career-low 523 yards – even recording lower numbers than his nine-game 2018 season when he had 694 yards. The only other year he’s fallen short of 1,000 yards was in 2016 when he had 964 yards in 10 games.

“Definitely not the numbers that I’m accustomed to,” Green said in December. “For me, I know we left some things out there on the table. But I am proud of how I kept fighting through the season. No matter what the situation, what’s going on, I continued to come in every day and work my butt off each and every day at practice. Like I said, everything’s not going to be perfect. You’re not going to have the perfect season. Things haven’t gone the way I planned it coming in. But there’s a lot of other things going (on) in the world that could be worse. So I’m just happy I can be able to go out here and play the game that I love and get paid for it.”

Green departs one touchdown shy of Chad Johnson for the franchise receiving touchdown record, which stands at 66. He got touchdown No. 65 in Week 14 against Dallas but he didn’t have a single catch in the 38-3 loss to Baltimore in the finale, despite Brandon Allen targeting him six times.

The Bengals will have multiple holes to fill in the receiving corps, as John Ross also was set to become a free agent Wednesday. They could do so through free agency or the draft, where some experts have predicted a reunion between quarterback Joe Burrow and his former LSU teammate Ja’Marr Chase with the No. 5 pick.

“To be able to add things whether that is up front, at receiver or adding guys on defense that keep the point totals down on defense that allow us to do some better things on offense as well you have to take all those options as they come at you with whatever pick it is,” Bengals coach Zac Taylor said in a recent news conference with local media. “The fifth pick, whatever, we have to be flexible as this thing goes. Whatever. Just excited to help our team in any way that we can.”

Through the first two days of legal tampering, and before free agent signings could be made official Wednesday afternoon, Cincinnati had only begun adding to the roster on defense with agreements in place with former Saints defensive end Trey Hendrickson and cornerbacks Mike Hilton and Chidobe Awuzi. The Bengals also signed safety Brandon Wilson to a two-year extension Tuesday.

Hendrickson replaces Carl Lawson, who was set to sign with the Jets, and Chidobe replaces William Jackson, who Tuesday night agreed to a three-year deal with Washington Football Team for $42 million. Jackson was a first-round draft pick in 2016 and played on a fifth-year option in 2020.