Bengals take responsibility for botched NFL trade with Eagles: It was on our end

The Bengals aren’t beating the allegations.Cincinnati could only offer an apology to the Eagles after admitting it backed out of a trade after miscalculating the comp-formula price the transaction would have on its future draft picks.Rumors emerged that the Bengals only did so after seeing a tweet stating it would lose a third-round compensatory pick by acquiring edge rusher Arnold Ebiketie for a sixth-round pick, and Cincinnati did little to dispel that narrative with its public messaging Wednesday.To make matters worse, Bengals director of player personnel Duke Tobin didn’t even address the issue but instead left coach Zac Taylor to deliver the mea culpa.“Duke was very explicit with me when he came and spoke with me about how he wanted this portrayed and I’m not comfortable doing it, but I’m going to do what he asked,” Taylor said after the Bengals sat out the NFL trade deadline.“As we got into it, obviously it was going to be a little more costly than we initially anticipated.

(Tobin is) really apologetic about it and wants to make clear Philly was a great trade partner, it was on our end.That’s the way things go.”With Cincinnati tied with the Steelers atop the AFC North with a 6-2 mark, the Bengals attempted to improve on the margins by acquiring Ebiketie for a late pick.Ebiketie is sackless across nine games this year and has 25 combined tackles.The teams agreed to the deal, but things got weird after compensatory picks expert Nick Korte tweeted that this transaction would be quite costly for the Bengals.By adding Ebiketie, whom the Eagles signed as a compensatory free agent, Cincinnati would ultimately forfeit the 2027 third-round comp pick headed its way for losing Trey Hendrickson.Thus, the price to add Ebiketie suddenly jumped significantly.Plenty of well-established media folks referenced Korte’s tweet when the Bengals backed out of the deal, which left the Eagles steaming, according to NFL Network.Taylor did not explicitly admit that...