02-16-2023, 11:21 AM
(02-16-2023, 11:08 AM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: Hmm, I'm not sure he means Joe. It felt more like a statement to management. Like "You guys are gonna have to work this thing out if you want to keep the 3 of us together."
And they kind of are. Taking on additional sponsors, selling the naming rights to the stadium etc. Those things will help with the cash flow required to sign these three.
Now all they have to do is work out the salary cap.
So the sooner we sign Higgins to what, at the time, will be a record breaking deal, by the time he's in the final 1 or 2 years of that extension (right around the time Chase's numbers will start to rapidly escalate), it will be a bargain by any stretch of the imagination.
The only question is, will the Bengals be willing to fully utilize void years to keep this window wide open? Or are they just too traditional to do that?
They did sign Riley Rieff to a 1 year contract with 1 void year on it to stretch out the cap hits (4.7M in 2021, 2.8M in 2022), so it's not a completely foreign concept for them. It will just have to be done a much larger scale if they realistically hope to keep Higgins and Chase together past both of their rookie contracts. It's going to take some creativity, but other teams have shown the ability to do it. The blue print is there.
He might have been talking about management but they do that every season.
Signing guys earlier definitely results in them being more affordable in the future. Most likely applies to Burrow the most.
IMO, the main reason we extend Tee now is to avoid a bidding war as no other team can make an offer this off season.
Void years are only good while the player is still playing well, after that void years suck ass limiting future movement.
Void years are not necessary to sign Tee and Chase.
I believe we only had about 3M left in cap space when we signed Reiff, thus the reason for the void year.
We dont need to get too crazy to keep these guys together.
