Can The Bengals Keep This Team Together?

[*SHRacerX*]

(12-01-2022, 08:32 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Easy for Hurst to find new words for a new home for 2yr/$20m or 3yr/$30m from a desperate team. It's a business and it will be his last real FA, he doesn't have long left in the NFL, and he's not even reached $15m in career earnings, so he needs to cash in on the one final time he can. I am 99% sure he chases the money, and I won't blame him for it.

Bengals can't afford to pay Higgins like a #1 while also paying Burrow and Chase. We're talking all three of them combined being roughly $110m/yr on average. You can't build anything resembling a complete team with that. It's already going to be tough to build a complete team with Burrow and Chase making ~$85m/yr on average. 

The money you save being in a more affordable city like Cincinnati is offset by the increased sponsorship money from being in a bigger city/market. LA is more expensive than Detroit, but Matthew Stafford wasn't getting national Little Caesar and AT&T commercial deals in Detroit. Not to mention if teams like the Cowboys, Jaguars, or Titans come calling, those states have no state income tax which on a 4-5yr/$100-125m deal is $4.8-6.0m saved over Ohio's state income tax.

This is a very common sentiment, and makes a lot of sense.  However, we don't really know just how high the salary cap will grow with all the gambling revenue.  Some think the salary cap could be as much as $300 million in 2026.  Now, will it be challenging to make a contract next year for Burrow and Higgins work (a year ahead of Chase) with only, say $230 million cap in 2023?  I would say yes.  Here is why:

The cap this year is $208 million, so it increases in one year roughly $22 million.  Holding every other contract as constants (I know they won't be, but hear me out...don't want to dive too deep into the weeds), the Bengals will save roughly $13 million when Bates is not re-signed.  They could also release Joe Mixon (as I believe there is an out after this season).  That saves roughly $23 million between the two. The cap increases $22 million in 2023 (projected).  So that is an increase in your salary cap dollars of $45 million.  Joe's salary cap hit next year would be roughly $10 million if left alone.  That is roughly $5 million salary, and $5 million of prorated signing bonus.  So, his cap hit as of today for next year would be $10 million.  If Joe signs a 10 year, $450 million dollar contract, His cap hit could be as little as $20 million by prorating the bonus across the 10 years and having the base salary grow each year as the cap will grow.  If Joe has a cap hit next year with his new contract of roughly $20 million, that would represent an increase of just $10 million over the current projected cap hit if he wasn't given a new contract.  You have already freed more than that up with the savings from Bates and Mixon.  

I hope that makes sense.  Yes, there will be Wilson to extend and possibly Pratt, maybe Jonah, but I think they can make it work.  My biggest question would be if the Bengals have the CASH to pay Joe the bonus all upfront (which gets prorated for cap purposes).  That could be a huge chunk of change.  Might have to sell the Lumina.