The AFC North has long been a division where the Steelers and Ravens separate themselves from the pack, and the latest Bengals mess only sharpens that picture.
Cincinnati tried to add edge rusher Arnold Ebiketie at the 2026 trade deadline, sending a sixth-round pick to the Philadelphia Eagles for a player who would have fit as a rotational depth piece. On paper, that price looked fine. The problem was what came with it.
According to Nick Korte, the Bengals would have lost a third-round compensatory pick in 2027 by completing the deal. Korte explained that Ebiketie was signed as a compensatory free agent by the Eagles, and that Cincinnati’s move would have cost them a 2027 third-round comp pick tied to Trey Hendrickson going to Baltimore, even as the team would have gained a 2027 sixth-rounder in the swap.
That turns a simple depth trade into a brutal overpay. Instead of giving up a sixth-rounder for Ebiketie, Cincinnati would have effectively paid a third-round pick as well. Once that became clear, the trade unraveled.
The sequence made the whole thing look even worse for Bengals general manager Duke Tobin. The deal fell apart within an hour of Korte’s post pointing out the compensatory-pick issue. Jordan Schultz later said the trade had been canceled, and Mike Garafolo reported that Cincinnati backed out because of the compensatory pick formula.
That’s the kind of public stumble that leaves no room for spin. Tobin has been running Cincinnati’s personnel operation for 24 years, and this one reads like a basic failure to understand the league’s comp-pick rules.
Nobody is pretending Omar Khan is perfect. The Steelers general manager has made mistakes too. But this is the sort of blunder that makes Pittsburgh’s front office look steady by comparison, and it gives Steelers fans another reason to grin at their division rival.
And the rest of the AFC North doesn’t exactly raise the bar. The Browns are part of the picture, and half the division looks incapable of building a complete roster. The Ravens are usually the polished operation of the group, but they’ve completely fallen apart without Lamar Jackson this year.
The Bengals are still dangerous. Joe Burrow is playing as well as any quarterback in football right now, and he has the best receiver duo in the league catching his passes. Even so, Pittsburgh’s competition is making mistakes that shouldn’t happen at this point in the season.
The Steelers already sit atop the division after their Week 9 bye, and with the rest of the North handing out this kind of help, they have no excuse to let the AFC North title slip away.
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