As the NFL flips its financial calendar next week and observes the league's new year, the Bengals are preparing for an active March and will begin the first stage of the 2025 roster building process.

Coming off their fourth straight winning season and a year they finished third in NFL spending, the Bengals appear to have retained their salary cap flexibility for keeping their top players and adding to a roster renovation that has defense in its crosshairs with new coordinator Al Golden.

In the Bengals' version of the Roaring '20s, they've had a decade of Marches where they've signed their three richest free-agents in history, built a Super Bowl defense and added to an offense that led the NFL in passing last season.

The activity has been so hectic in the first days of free agency that beat reporters have joked they can't do the most mundane of activities for fear they'll miss another signing. Teams can begin to negotiate with free agents on Monday and can’t sign deals until Wednesday.

But March is just the first wave. There are still six months of transactions until Opening Day, highlighted by next month's draft. Then comes the string of voluntary workouts, training camp practices and preseason games.

For instance, they didn't sign one of their top rookies last year until they picked up punter Ryan Rehkow the week training camp started. And who can forget the trade for tackle B.J. Hill in the days leading up to the 2021 regular season that helped propel one of the league's best defenses to the Super Bowl?

All indications are that each phase of acquisitions is going to focus on getting Golden players to beef up a new defensive playbook and fit his scheme of more varied pressure packages.

"The No. 1 thing we've got to try and do is get better on defense. We have to get better as a unit in totality on defense," Bengals director of player personnel Duke Tobin told Bengals.com at the Senior Bowl.

"We have got to get it to at least the middle of the league to where we can use our offense to seal games up and not be reliant on making a play at the end of the game."

The Bengals got more flexible for next week's start of free agency when they released right guard Alex Cappa and defensive tackle Sheldon Rankins for a salary cap savings of about $20 million. The retirement of defensive end Sam Hubbard saved about $10 million.

Another option could exist when they gave defensive end Trey Hendrickson permission to seek a trade on Thursday. Hendrickson could also end up back in Cincinnati with a new deal.

The Bengals have said since the season ended that their priority is extending wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase as he comes off a season he pulled off this century's third receiving triple crown. Chase led the league in catches, yards and touchdowns while becoming the first man to catch 1,700 yards and 17 touchdowns.

Tobin has said they expect to make Chase the NFL's top paid wide receiver, while also retaining running mate Tee Higgins, their two-time 1,000-yard receiver.

The first step came earlier this week when they made Higgins their first two-time franchise free-agent by tendering him a one-year deal in excess of $26 million with the hopes of signing him to a longer contract.

"We are fortunate. We've got a lot of really good football players, fantastic football players," Tobin said at the combine. "We're fortunate to be in a position to where we can fit them all in and we've managed our cap well. We've got low dead money. We want a high payroll and low dead money so the people that are in Cincinnati playing for us can get all the money."

As always, they feel like their lack of dead money ($6 million compared to the $66 million of the 49ers), has them in position to strike.

"I want the best players available and I also want to add more players to our team," Tobin said. "I don't want to just pay more money for the same team we had last year. We have other needs and I want to go after those needs as well."

Along with keeping their own free agents, Tobin has underlined shoring up front seven help on the defensive line and at linebacker.

"D-Line is always on my mind. It doesn't matter what time of year. It could be September or July or it could be April," Tobin said. "You want to build the defensive line. You want to have enough options when you have injuries. Because you will … I did wish maybe we had a little more depth in that area and maybe stopped the run a little better."

They'll also be looking to upgrade parts of an offense that scored a Bengals-record 472 points. Tobin has also marked keeping tight end Mike Gesicki a priority in free agency after his 65 catches were the most ever in a season by a Bengals tight end, and the departure of Cappa indicates work at guard.

It's that time of year you can't blink.

"There are very few positions we won't be looking to add players," is how Tobin put it at back at the Senior Bowl.