As is usually the case, Cincinnati will be carrying over a significant amount of cap space from the previous season.

According to the latest cap figures from the NFLPA, the Bengals will carry over $6.5 million from the 2016 calendar year into 2017.

Every NFL team elected to carry over unused salary cap space from 2016. The smallest carryover amount is $113,693 by the Chargers, and the largest is $50,123,866 by the Browns. Without the Browns and 49ers included, the league average is $6,196,622.84, which is just slightly less than what the Bengals have to rollover to next season.

According to the latest projections from Spotrac, Cincinnati will have around $47 million in cap space this year, and they’ll need every bit of it. The Bengals have several key free agents set to hit the market, including Andrew Whitworth, Dre Kirkpatrick and Kevin Zeitler.

All three of those guys stand to make $10 million (or more) in 2017, so that right there could account for most of Cincinnati’s cap space. Even re-signing just two of the three will take up a lot of space, depending on how much of the contracts are frontloaded.

The Bengals would be wise to frontload a lot of money into this year for a guy like Kirkpatrick, which would lessen his cap hit in future seasons.

And that’s not even accounting for the players who need to be extended this offseason before their impending free agency in 2018. Vontaze Burfict, Tyler Eifert, Jeremy Hill, and Russell Bodine are all slated to hit free agency next year, and depending on who from that group the Bengals want to re-sign, that too could account for a portion of this year’s cap space.

Here’s a list of the Bengals’ 2017 free agents:

Bengals 2017 free agents Player Pos. 2016 Team Type Current APY Guarantees Status Player Pos. 2016 Team Type Current APY Guarantees Status Andrew Whitworth LT Bengals UFA $9,000,000 $2,000,000 Domata Peko 4-3 DT Bengals UFA $4,500,000 $4,400,000 Brandon LaFell WR Bengals UFA $2,500,000 $1,000,000 Dre Kirkpatrick CB Bengals UFA $2,155,749 $7,840,065 Karlos Dansby 4-3 OLB Bengals UFA $2,000,000 $700,000 Kevin Zeitler RG Bengals UFA $1,886,050 $6,125,446 Eric Winston RT Bengals UFA $1,090,000 $80,000 Cedric Peerman RB Bengals UFA $1,065,000 $250,000 Margus Hunt 4-3 DE Bengals UFA $917,775 $1,049,892 Wallace Gilberry 4-3 DE Bengals UFA $885,000 $0 Brandon Thompson 4-3 DT Bengals UFA $840,000 $50,000 Chykie Brown CB Bengals UFA $760,000 $0 Randy Bullock K Bengals UFA $675,000 $0 Re-Signed T.J. Johnson C Bengals RFA $600,000 $0 Rex Burkhead RB Bengals UFA $565,550 $102,200

And, here are the Bengals’ 2018 free agents who the team could get a head start on re-signing this offseason: