01-31-2023, 07:08 PM
(01-31-2023, 07:02 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Yes, but when you do it for 3-4 guys at once, they're all going to be on roughly the same timeline of escalation. It's going to crush you at once after a year or two, and the Bengals don't have enough liquid cash to keep extending/reworking base salaries into big signing bonuses to keep making new cap space in a kick-the-can type method.
The Chiefs got exactly 1 year with Mahomes before they had to turn $21m into a signing bonus to clear up $17.3m in cap space. That FO is very good at manipulating the cap to make more space when needed, and even they had to not pay Tyreek Hill in order to be able to spread that cash around to the rest of their roster (and they're better for it).
I hope for Burrow to sign a 10 year deal, because it will age well so long as he stays content with it, but there's a big factor in Mahomes' deal that the Bengals almost certainly won't copy. Mahomes has giant roster bonuses on the 3rd day of the league year in March that become guaranteed the year BEFORE. That means this March Mahomes will get a $34.4m lump sum roster bonus right then for 2023 (already probably a problem for the Browns/Blackburns) but ALSO his 2024 roster bonus then becomes guaranteed as well, locking him into another $34.9m lump sum payment in March of 2024 even if he isn't on the team anymore. So when he gets his roster bonus from that year, his next year's roster bonus always becomes already guaranteed a year in advance.
Since Mahomes signed his deal, QB signing bonuses/guarantees have shot up a ton, partially because of Watson's $230m guarantee/$45m signing bonus, but also Stafford and Wilson got $60m and $50m signing bonuses just last offseason, and Prescott got a $66m signing bonus the year before.
Also probably going against my hopes/wishes of Burrow getting a 10 year deal is the length of the deal. Josh Allen is the only other QB who had more than 5 years, and he had 6. I won't be surprised if Mahomes ends up wanting more money on his contract in 2-3 years when he's the 15th or so highest paid QB. He already slipped to 5th in 2022 and he'll be falling down to 8th or 9th this offseason other agents/players will see that.
I think the salary cap escalation will handle future years.
Mahomes said he doesn't care what others make.
He was also quoted by CBS:
"When I signed my deal, I knew I was going to be pretty set for life regardless of what the market kind of happens," Mahomes said Friday on the rising quarterback salaries. "But you just keep playing."
"I mean money is one thing but when you get those Super Bowl rings at the end of your career, I think that's going to be the thing that you look back upon and I think I've made enough money from the football field and obviously off of it as well that it won't matter at the end of the day."
We need Burrow to take this approach.
