Tee is now the only tagged player without a new deal

[*jason*]

(05-17-2024, 10:48 PM)CJD Wrote: It would bother me less if I understood what they were doing. You mention that they are making a run at the Super Bowl this year, so keeping him is in the team's best interest, but if they were seriously treating this season like Super Bowl or bust season, why do we still have 23 million dollars in cap space? Why didn't we spend that money to make this year a Super Bowl or Bust year? Their actions are inconsistent.

Not to mention, the Bengals don't have any major, big ticket free agents coming due in 2025 other than Tee Higgins because of how bad the 2021 draft class was outside of Chase and McPherson.

Who are the players we risk losing if we signed Higgins to a 3 year deal today?

The biggest names that are free agents in 2025 are:
BJ Hill, who is turning 30 in 2025 and they've already effectively replaced with Jenkins
Mike Hilton, who is turning 31 in 2025 and they've already effectively replaced with Dax
Trent Brown, who is turning 32 in 2025 and they've already effectively replaced with Mims 
Gesicki, who is turning 30 in 2025 and they've already effectively replaced with All and McLaughlin
And Ted Karras, who is turning 32 in 2025. He does not have an official replacement yet, but I think our 7th round pick Lee is going to get a good hard look (many consider him the steal of our draft class, as he was projected early day 3 by some), and maybe they give Karras a 1 or 2 year extension at a reasonable price.

They obviously will want to re-sign McPherson as well, but that's not going to be a huge cap hit regardless. 
And they will want to re-sign Chase eventually, but it sounds like he is going to wait until Jefferson and Lamb get extensions at the very least.

2026 has Hendrickson, Rankins, Hubbard, Cappa, Chase, Stone, Pratt, and Moss due up, but that's 2 years away. That's 2 cap increases, 2 free agent classes and 2 draft classes away, so I don't see why we'd need to handicap the 2024 Bengals by planning for the 2026 free agent class.

I just don't understand why we're saving so much money if "we can't afford" to extend basically anyone haha.

This... I was ok with letting Bates walk because I thought the money was going to Chase, Joe, and Tee and whomever else. But man if there was no intent to lock Higgins up, what the hell? They could've kept Jesse Bates. I can't wrap my head around their vision. I know you can't keep everybody, but you also can't not keep anybody.