Bengals prioritizing Marvin Jones and Adam Jones; Mohamed Sanu likely gone

The Cincinnati Bengals have some tough decisions to make this offseason with the number of key free agents they have.

But to this point, there's been few indications as to which free agents the Bengals are making the biggest priority to re-sign this offseason. You could make good cases for Marvin Jones, George Iloka, Reggie Nelson, Adam Jones or even Leon Hall to be near the top of Cincy's wish list to lock up.

Now, Bengals.com's Geoff Hobson is reporting that Adam and Marvin Jones are the two guys Cincinnati are prioritizing to get re-signed.

"But all signs are that the Bengals are going to go all out to re-sign their two most high-profile free agents in starting wide receiver Marvin Jones and starting cornerback Adam Jones when the games begin March 7," Hobson writes.

This is the first occurrence of Adam Jones being mentioned formally at or near the top of the Bengals' priority free agents. His age (32) makes it hard to project how much longer he'll play at a high level.

But for a team looking to win now, getting him back after he was one of the NFL's best corners last year should be a priority. Getting him back gives the Bengals both of their starting boundary corners back to go with Darqueze Dennard moving into the slot, a role he played well in last year.

That's not all Hobson is hearing. He subtly hints at Mohamed Sanu not being back midway through the article, saying, "Slot receiver Mohamed Sanu has already made it known via sources he’s not re-signing."

It's not clear if that's what Hobson is hearing on his own or he's piggybacking off an earlier offseason report that Sanu was all but done with the Bengals.

Ironically and probably not by coincidence, the man who originally reported Sanu was leaving just happens to be Fox Sports' Alex Marvez, who Hobson interviewed this weekend at the NFL Scouting Combine. When asked about Sanu, Marvez continued to suggest Sanu is done in the Queen City, but that may help Marvin Jones return.

"Mohamed Sanu, you may as well just say goodbye Bengals fans. He's not coming back, so they're going to be able to get Marvin Jones re-done."

That makes perfect sense with Jones likely to command a sizable contract, and you can only spend so much money at one position. A.J. Green is eating up $15 million per year, so it's pretty much certain that the Bengals won't re-sign Jones and Sanu. This news also comes after Sanu just proposed to his long-time girlfriend on Sunday, and she of course said yes.

The only bad thing about going all out for Marvin Jones is that if the Bengals miss out on re-signing him, it looks like they won't be able to turn around and make a bigger push for Sanu, so it's essentially a Marvin-or-nothing scenario.

As close to a Super Bowl contender as this Bengals team is, the 'nothing' scenario would be a tough pill to swallow.