The Cincinnati Bengals could be walking a dangerous tightrope if they don’t make one more move before the 2023 NFL season starts, ESPN’s Bill Barnwell believes.

The Cincinnati Bengals are a team who have emerged as a major threat in the National Football League. Whilst they haven’t managed to grab as much hardware as the Kansas City Chiefs, they have faced off against them in the last two AFC Championship games, beating them on their own turf in the 2021 season on their way to the Super Bowl and it would take a brave person to bet against them challenging near the top of the AFC this year.

A large part of that has been down to the success of their offense, which has emerged as one of the best in the league, led by quarterback Joe Burrow and weapons like Tyler Boyd, Ja'Marr Chase, Tee Higgins and Joe Mixon, but the defense has also played its part, making reasonable progress from one of the worst in the league to a middle of the pack side in the past two years.

One man who played a big part in their progress was corner Eli Apple, who during his two years in Cincinnati, had 98 tackles, 18 pass deflections and 2 interceptions, establishing himself as one of the better ones in the game, however clearly not good enough for the Bengals to keep hold of him as they let him go at the end of the season.

Are Cincinnati Bengals taking a big risk with Eli Apple move?

And writing in a column for ESPN, Bill Barnwell claimed that the Bengals need to get Apple back on the team sooner rather than later, noting that they would be taking a risk going into the 2023 season without him and putting faith in what they have left to work with:

What's left to do: Reunite with Apple? He rebuilt his career as a starting cornerback on the Bengals over the past two seasons, so I'm surprised there wasn't at least some market for him in free agency. He is still out there, which seems remarkable in a league in which every team needs more cornerbacks.

The Bengals have Hilton in the slot and a potential top three at cornerback of Awuzie, Taylor-Britt and Turner, but the latter might not be ready to jump right in as a rookie. Awuzie was playing at an All-Pro level to start last season, but he tore his right ACL on Halloween and missed the remainder of the year. If everyone is healthy and lives up to expectations, the Bengals won't need Apple, but things don't often go that well over the course of an NFL campaign. A reunion between the two sides would make sense.

As per OverTheCap, the Bengals have some funds to work with in terms of a new contract, but the issue for them is they are currently in talks to re-work Burrow’s contract, which you imagine will take up a sizeable chunk of their cap space moving forward.

So it might just be that they saw Apple as expendable in order to make room for Burrow, but if the defense takes a step back this year, and they aren’t able to compete, then they might regret letting him walk out the door.