If there’s one front office I wouldn’t dare want to be a part of right now, it’s the Cincinnati Bengals. They are in cap hell and have to figure out how to cough up enough money to keep everybody happy and on the team.
The one thing this front office specializes in is the one thing holding them back from creatively figuring out how to retain Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins and Trey Hendrickson. They have the recipe in front of them, but the Bengals aren’t bold enough to mimic what Philadelphia did en route to its first Super Bowl title since 2017.
That said, the Bengals are committed to at least trying. They are planning to franchise tag Higgins again with the intent of signing him long-term. They will do this to give them some freedom to not bid against themselves if Higgins reaches the open market.
So where does that leave Chase? Well, according to The Athletic ($), it leaves him and his agent trying to negotiate a deal but are still getting nowhere in the negotiations. The Bengals have reportedly thrown out an offer, but it’s not the number Chase and his camp were looking for.
Bengals well short of Ja'Marr Chase's perferred contract in negotiations
The Bengals did this to themselves, honestly. They should have already worked out a deal with either Higgins or Chase before now to avoid exactly what’s happening. Trying to negotiate two massive contracts at the same time is a terrible idea.
They’re finding out just how impossible it is going to be to keep everybody happy. The most important person to keep happy is Joe Burrow. If the Bengals front office handled this properly, they shouldn’t have made empty promises to Burrow.
I don’t know if they straight-up told him, “Hey, we’re going to find a way to keep everybody” or not, but leading him on is practically worse. If they kept it clear with him only one was coming back, that would make this offseason less stressful.
But the Bengals have been mum on what they’re trying to do, yet made all the “right” moves to keep the core of the offense intact. It’s a tall task for them to do. They just paid Burrow to keep him as the face of the franchise.
The Bengals aren’t a team that try to find financial loopholes to keep their best players on the roster like other teams, which is why this offseason is so critical. They will either have to stray from their usual tendencies or end up frustrating people and cause tension in the locker room.
The latter seems like a lost cause, but more of a reality than not. Cincinnati has to figure out what they’re going to do. Because dragging out contract negotiations past free agency is going to put them in a bind.
Chase won the triple crown for a receiver and the Bengals didn’t make the playoffs. Is he really going to play on a one-year deal, risk getting hurt and plummet his value? Probably not. Chase has proven how good he is. And Higgins has proved why Cincinnati needs him around.
It’s up to the front office to either figure it out or prepare for a weird season that could result in a mutiny.