Is It Time for the Bengals to Go All In?

[Joelist]

For anyone who wants more numbers here is a recent financial analysis of the Bengals:

https://www.forbes.com/teams/cincinnati-bengals/?sh=5603665b4551

If you want to know why they (and other franchises) are shy about full guarantees just remember the NFL Funding Rule and realize that they have to put a BIG number into Escrow at signing. For Burrow the number will top $200 million. For Chase it is going to be around $100 million. And you can't just take out loans to do this because the loan still has to be repaid PLUS INTEREST. What this leaves is stacking up Cash to be ready for when they need to spend it. This is also why they are selling naming rights and other such things - if they want to stay competitive they have to increase their Cash Flow.

This is also why you're starting to hear the NFLPA pushing to abolish the Funding Rule - it is an artifact from the 1960s and is starting to render some franchises incapable of giving out the fully guaranteed deals the players desire.