Boye Mafe has come over from the dark side.
According to Monday’s multiple reports, Mafe, one of Seattle's seemingly bottomless supply of Super Bowl champion pass rushers on the "Dark Side Defense," joined homegrown safety Bryan Cook to brighten the Bengals' defensive picture after a historic day of spending at Paycor Stadium.
The reports said Mafe agreed to a three-year, $60 million deal, making him the Bengals' first $20 million per year free agent. Cook, a two-time Super Bowl champ who prepped in Greater Cincinnati and played at the University of Cincinnati, reportedly got $40.25 million for three years, which would make him the highest-paid Bengals safety ever.
The deals can't be announced until the NFL's new year at 4 p.m. Wednesday. The Bengals won't announce them until the contracts are signed, which could be Thursday.
Duke Tobin, the Bengals director of player personnel, promised defense for the road back to the Super Bowl, and he came out of the first day with two regulars who have recent rings.
It all had a bit of nostalgia to it. When the Bengals built their Super Bowl defense in the free agencies of 2020-21, they focused on ascending players from playoff teams inking second contracts.
Cook, who turns 27 the week of Opening Day, is a snug fit next to Jordan Battle as the Bengals' starting safeties. He's played in two Super Bowls, six postseason games, and a slew of big ones while becoming fluent in the highly-regarded scheme of Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo.
Mafe, 27, got his ring last month with three pressures that were part of the assault on Patriots quarterback Drake Maye in San Francisco. He's not coming off a 13.5-sack season like future NFL sack champion Trey Hendrickson was in New Orleans when the Bengals grabbed him in 2021 with what was then the highest free-agent deal in club history. But there are similarities.
The overshadowed Hendrickson had just 6.5 sacks in his first three seasons trying to break in with the Saints. In Mafe's second season after then-head coach Pete Carroll took him with the 40th pick in the 2022 draft, Mafe had a break-out year with nine sacks, set the franchise record for most consecutive games with a sack, and followed it up with a six-sack season before head coach Mike Macdonald settled on a deep rotation this year that rarely used Mafe on third down.
This time, Mafe was overshadowed. Even though he played 50% of the snaps, Mafe still delivered 44 pressures and 40 hurries, which, according to Pro Football Focus, would have led the Bengals. His rep setting the edge against the run also makes for a good fit as the Bengals look to reinforce edgers Myles Murphy and Shemar Stewart.
According to PFF, Mafe has 146 pressures over the past three seasons, as well as 41 run stops, which rate in the top third for both categories among NFL edges.
Another similarity with Hendrickson is a quick first step. At the recent NFL scouting combine, Macdonald told the Seattle media that Mafe had the defense's quickest move off the ball.
"I think Boye played really good football for us," Macdonald told Gregg Bell of the Tacoma News Tribune. "I mean, for the guys that we had in our roster, and then him taking the role that he had was great. The way he plays the edge is a great complement to the rest of the guys."
Meanwhile, Cook looks to be the perfect ingredient. The Bengals have been screaming for a savvy and sure-tacking safety, and, well, here's one of the best, a top-five NFL safety as graded by PFF this year.
"The group has to play better as a whole. What we like in safeties is what everyone likes in safeties. You want guys who are instinctive, that see the big picture," Tobin said at the combine. "They have to have speed to cover. If they can cover in man, that really opens up a lot of opportunities for you. They have to be willing to tackle in the box. They have to be a good open-field tackler.
"The more space you create with those guys, the tougher the tackles get. And there are no safeties in the NFL that don't miss tackles. You just want to limit those exposures to where they have the big gap to make up. But space causes missed tackles more than anything. So spacing is important. That plays into some of the instincts and so forth that we really want to see in that position group."
Cook has played in every big game imaginable. He had a pass defense in each of the Chiefs' walk-off wins at Arrowhead stadium against the Bengals in the 2022 AFC title game and in the 2024 regular season. He's one of these safeties who can give you a little bit of everything in the box with some man coverage, although you won't see him in the slot much because the Bengals don't do that often with their safeties.
This past year, Cook had a missed tackle rate of 5.6%, per PFF. Of the safeties who played at least Cook's 897 snaps last season, only three had a better tackling percentage.
You may have had Cook in your 2022 second-round Mock Draft for the Bengals at No. 60. That turned out to be Nebraska cornerback Cam Taylor-Britt. For real, Cook went to the Chiefs two picks later.
Cook joins Cincinnati football royalty as the sixth player to play in a game for the Bengals after college careers at UC and prep careers in Greater Cincinnati.
The late running back Clem Turner, out of Woodward High School, began the run as a fourth-round pick in 1969. He was followed by Taft High School defensive lineman Vaughn Booker, Hughes linebacker Andre Frazier, LaSalle linebacker J.K. Schaffer and McNicholas High School punter Kevin Huber. Now Mount Healthy High's Cook.
