$125 million for 3 Players

[CJD]

Here's the deal.

Joe Burrow and Ja'Marr Chase are givens. Every team in the entire league would sign these two players to whatever contract was required. In this case, they could have probably gotten Chase done for 36 or 37M AAV last year. Now they'll probably need to do 40.5 or 41M AAV. It's a shame and a waste of money, but not catastrophic in terms of building teams.

So that's 96 million of that 125 million is already pretty much set in stone.

Higgins is really the only player that is controversial.

Early reports are that Chase and Higgins, combined, are approximately 70M AAV. We don't know the exact split of that or how close to 70M it is, but let's just assume it's 29M for Higgins, 41 for Chase.

The top defensive free agent in this year's free agent class was Milton Williams, who signed a 4 year 104M contract with the Patriots. That's 26M AAV. So, in order for us to get him, we'd probably have to pay him 27M AAV. And that's assuming New England was topped out. It could have easily gone up to 28 or 29M AAV if we were fighting NE for his services.

Milton Williams is a good player. He is considered a quality pass rusher from the defensive tackle position, with a 90.4 PFF grade, second in the NFL behind only Chris Jones.

He also is a horrendous run stopper, with a 43.1 PFF grade against the run. Combined, his overall grade is 70.1, which is good for 31st among defensive tackles.

He was also surrounded by the most talented defensive line in the entire NFL, with Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis, Josh Sweat, Brandon Graham, and Nolan Smith all creating a fantastic rotation of pass rushing talent that allowed Milton Williams to thrive.

I think most NFL analysts and fans would have nodded in approval if, instead of signing Higgins to 29M AAV, we signed Williams to 29M AAV.

But we know Higgins works here. We've seen it. In 2024, he was the 5th rated WR per PFF in the entire NFL.

We have no idea how Williams would acclimate to this defense. We already know he's a bit niche given his bad run defense. So we'd be relying on him meshing with Hendrickson (if we even keep him) and becoming a super star defensive tackle for the length of his contract. It could very easily blow up in our faces.

I think there's merit in questioning whether it is ideal that we have so much money wrapped up in 2 WRs and a QB. But the problem is we can't rewind time and draft different players or change who our free agents are.

With the state of the team and the status of this free agency period, I don't think any player improved our team more than Higgins on the free agent market. Signing him was the best choice among the choices we were given in this off season.

And I'm glad the Bengals FINALLY did it... If only they did it two years ago.