Bates - No Intentions Reporting to Camp or Play on Tag

[Joelist]

It would be nice if people would remember that the NFL has a little rule called the "funding rule". It requires teams to put in escrow the entire guaranteed value of a contract. Unless the league either rescinds the rule or changes it, clubs like the Bengals who don't have super rich sugar daddies will become unable to sign a lot of players if they have to guarantee it all. In the case of Bates, the team really does not have the cash flow to put 80+ million in escrow for him when they are all but certain to have to figure out how to put twice that or more in escrow for Burrow after this season - and this says nothing of Chase, Higgins or anyone else.

So the cash issue is not false nonsense. It is a weird issue peculiar to the NFL because the other sports leagues don't have this type of funding rule.