JoeyB willing to restructure

[Isaac Curtis: The Real #85]

We have around $40+ mil available.

A Burrow restructure can add $19 mil.

If we start cutting guys like Rankins, Cappa, Hubbard, Moss, & Volson. That's another $30 mil.

Call it $90 mil.

Say Tee is $25 cap hit. All Chase & Trey will add is pro-rated signing bonus, say $10 for Chase & $5 for Trey. That's $40.

We'd still have $50 mil (or so) for Gesicki, Hilton/Hill, and more outside FA's (G, DT, DE, maybe TE/WR, S).

Draft whatever we whiff on/still need.

We only have 2 DTs under contract. Need 2-3 there.

[*Nate (formerly eliminate08)*]

(02-06-2025, 05:51 PM)Isaac Curtis: The Real #85 Wrote: We have around $40+ mil available.

A Burrow restructure can add $19 mil.

If we start cutting guys like Rankins, Cappa, Hubbard, Moss, & Volson. That's another $30 mil.

Call it $90 mil.

Say Tee is $25 cap hit. All Chase & Trey will add is pro-rated signing bonus, say $10 for Chase & $5 for Trey. That's $40.

We'd still have $50 mil (or so) for Gesicki, Hilton/Hill, and more outside FA's (G, DT, DE, maybe TE/WR, S).

Draft whatever we whiff on/still need.

We only have 2 DTs under contract. Need 2-3 there.

Sounds about right to me and that is plenty to get what we need done as Burrow says. The thing about cutting Rankins namely as 
that whoever we bring in that does anything positive is an upgrade. What a disappointing signing that was? Thought he would of at 
least brought some pass rush to the table, but nada?

Cappa really fell off and some say that is because of injury, we will see. We know Hubbard has been playing with injury. Moss didn't
even bring good pass pro here last year. Volson sucks, cut him.

Build around the core players in Joe, Ja'Marr, Tee, Mike G and Trey and you could have worse players to build around I would think.

[Luvnit2]

(02-06-2025, 04:18 PM)J24 Wrote: If they structure their contracts properly then it shouldn't be a problem. The FO can do a better job at manipulating the cap.

I agree 100%. Great news is FO had not leveraged much of the future. Question becomes is will they begin to lecture not all, but more of the future with the 2025 new contracts. Do they have the cash to leverage more of the future by using signing bonuses to defer compensation.

As for Tee, I am not as concerned with honoring his request for a 4- or 5-year contract with one stipulation. The guaranteed portion needs to be between 55% to 60% maximum due to his injuries. We could offer Tee a 4-year deal for 90 million with 54 million guaranteed structured as follows:

20 million signing bonus deferred over 4 years = 5 million cap hit from 2025 through 2028

2025 Base - 3 million + 5 million deferred = 8 million cap hit 2025

2026 Base - 16 million + 5 million deferred = 21 million cap hit + 4 million roster bonus = 25 million cap hit

2027 Base - 17 million + 5 million deferred = 22 million cap hit + 6 million roster bonus = 28 million cap hit  (Guaranteed portion met)

2028 Base = 18 million+ 5 million deferred = 23 million cap hit + 6 million roster bonus = 29 million cap hit (none is guaranteed so we could cut him with no dead money)

Why would Tee do it?

2025 gets 23 million (Bonus + base) - all guaranteed
2026 gets 20 million - all guaranteed
2027 gets 23 million - Most guaranteed
2028 gets - 24 million if he plays well, he gets the full 90 million. (Not guaranteed)
Tee average per year = 90 million/4 = 22.5 million

He may want more. But as you can see, by giving a huge bonus in year 1, our 2025 cap is only 8 million in this scenario. Our cap escalates in years 2-4, but we will get more cap dollars in future cap, FO could choose to rollover the extra 10+ million they would have spent n 2025.

Would you reconsider signing tee for 4 years with an option to cut him in year 4 and save 24 million (other 5 million would dead cap) in this scenario?

This same thing can be applied to others as well. Trey, Jamar and anyone they are signing to 3- or 4-year deals. There are ways the team can leverage some of the future, but at the same time sign players to deals than can deduce the cap in the current year. Simply taking a contract of 4 years and dividing the contract by 4 is not accurate.

Most NFL contracts escalate each year and other then Watson are not fully guaranteed.

[*bfine32*]

I see better than I hear. It seems like only yesterday he was going to take a "special deal" to help out keeping other players.

[Isaac Curtis: The Real #85]

(02-06-2025, 06:19 PM)Nate (formerly eliminate08) Wrote: Sounds about right to me and that is plenty to get what we need done as Burrow says. The thing about cutting Rankins namely as 
that whoever we bring in that does anything positive is an upgrade. What a disappointing signing that was? Thought he would of at 
least brought some pass rush to the table, but nada?

Cappa really fell off and some say that is because of injury, we will see. We know Hubbard has been playing with injury. Moss didn't
even bring good pass pro here last year. Volson sucks, cut him.

Build around the core players in Joe, Ja'Marr, Tee, Mike G and Trey and you could have worse players to build around I would think.

Yeah. If we buy the drop off is due to injury (Hubbard, Cappa), then a replacement may not be necessary. Rankins could be in that category as well. 

But LG needs upgraded even if Cappa rebounds. And Hubbard isn't a great pass rusher even at his best. And even with Rankins, we still need DT help. 

If we can get Tee, Chase, Trey, Mike G. and the Burrow restructure done quickly, it will help us attract other guys in FA. It will show we are serious about being a contender. 

A ring chaser/vet would have us on their list then. Some maybe be cheap (Calais Campbell at DT), mid-range (Zeitler at RG, Tart at DT), or even high end (Smith at RG). 

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(02-06-2025, 06:32 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: The guaranteed portion needs to be between 55% to 60% maximum due to his injuries. We could offer Tee a 4-year deal for 90 million with 54 million guaranteed structured as follows:

Assuming you're talking guaranteed at signing as that's the only guaranteed number that really counts as it's the only real guaranteed number, that would currently tie him for the 3rd most guaranteed money among all WRs. (Presumably t-4th once Chase gets extended.)

Heck, Justin Jefferson got 63.4% of his contract guaranteed at signing. So I don't think your 55-60% maximum due to his injuries is nearly as low as you think it is. CeeDee Lamb got 49.3%, AJ Brown got 53.1%.

Also isn't word currently that a bidding war can push Tee to something more like 4yr/$112m? That's almost an entire extra year of pay ($22m extra while you're proposing $22.5m/yr) put into the same number of years.

[Millhouse]

(02-06-2025, 05:40 PM)bengalfan74 Wrote: Yes very much so

We'll see if the F.O./Brown family is going to do the right thing or not. There's no way they can put the usual band-aid on this. To many issues, not enough time. It's time to put up or shut up.

Fingers crossed

I probably should clarify a little in that I do think that if the Bengals give it their best effort to get it done, but if it doesn't happen for one of those guys, then ok, whatever they move on with little backlash. 

But if they don't give that effort and it just goes sideways, then yeah that won't be good.

[Luvnit2]

(02-06-2025, 06:44 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Assuming you're talking guaranteed at signing as that's the only guaranteed number that really counts as it's the only real guaranteed number, that would currently tie him for the 3rd most guaranteed money among all WRs. (Presumably t-4th once Chase gets extended.)

Heck, Justin Jefferson got 63.4% of his contract guaranteed at signing. So I don't think your 55-60% maximum due to his injuries is nearly as low as you think it is. CeeDee Lamb got 49.3%, AJ Brown got 53.1%.

Also isn't word currently that a bidding war can push Tee to something more like 4yr/$112m? That's almost an entire extra year of pay ($22m extra while you're proposing $22.5m/yr) put into the same number of years.

There is no bidding war yet. Only Bengals can speak with Tee and his agent. JJ has contract of 140 million with 110 million guaranteed.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/40268752/sources-justin-jefferson-vikings-agree-4-year-140m-deal. It calculates to 78.5% guaranteed.

Lamb got an extension for 136 million with 100 million guaranteed or 73.5%.

https://www.nfl.com/news/cowboys-wr-ceedee-lamb-agree-to-terms-on-four-year-136-million-extension

Tee want more, but even if he wants more, the Bengals can structure it to be very affordable years 1 and years 2 if they choose.

JJ and Lamb are 2 of the best WR's in football. Tee does not have the numbers to get anything close to them in my opinion. I love Tee, he is not Jamar either.

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(02-06-2025, 07:10 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: There is no bidding war yet. Only Bengals can speak with Tee and his agent. JJ has contract of 140 million with 110 million guaranteed.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/40268752/sources-justin-jefferson-vikings-agree-4-year-140m-deal. It calculates to 78.5% guaranteed.

Lamb got an extension for 136 million with 100 million guaranteed or 73.5%.

https://www.nfl.com/news/cowboys-wr-ceedee-lamb-agree-to-terms-on-four-year-136-million-extension

Tee want more, but even if he wants more, the Bengals can structure it to be very affordable years 1 and years 2 if they choose.

JJ and Lamb are 2 of the best WR's in football. Tee does not have the numbers to get anything close to them in my opinion. I love Tee, he is not Jamar either.

Those are both the fake numbers that are released to make it look better, not the guaranteed at signing which are the REAL guarantees.
https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/contracts/_/position/wr/sort/initial_guaranteed/dir/desc

If both of Jefferson's legs fall off tomorrow, he will not get $110m. The same with Lamb's $100m.

Jefferson got $88.743m guaranteed at signing.
Lamb got $67m.

Those are the real numbers.

- - - - -

Example:
https://www.nfl.com/news/russell-wilson-broncos-contract-extension-five-year-245-million
"includes $165m guaranteed"

But Wilson didn't see $165m out of that contract, because that was the fake inflated "guarantees". What he got was $124 ($123m from the Broncos and $1m from the Steelers), because that was the actual guaranteed money.
https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/player/_/id/9885/russell-wilson

Guaranteed at signing is largely the only number that truly matters. The rest is for show. That's why Davante Adams' deal was so tradeable despite being on a 5yr/$140m deal... only $22.75m of it was guaranteed at signing.

Amon-Ra St Brown got a 4yr/$120m extension last offseason and 2025 will be the first year of it, but after 2025's $13.9m cap hit the Lions could already get out of it with just $16.7m in dead cap because it only had a $34.6m guarantee at signing despite the gaudy looking "$77m guaranteed" that is ostensibly attached to it. 

[HarleyDog]

(02-06-2025, 12:10 PM)StoneTheCrow Wrote: If they botch this, man….

Yep. I swear if they screw this up, it will be like being a Cleveland fan.

[Soonerpeace]

Joe Burrow addresses the Bengals slow starts and the importance of their WRs ?

"We have the space we need to keep both [Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins]." pic.twitter.com/2cSy0YUfts

— First Take (@FirstTake) February 6, 2025

[Soonerpeace]

Some of you aren’t paying attention. There’s an excellent chance what Joey B says will happen. What this franchise needs is better success in the draft and lesser extent free agency.

[Joelist]

What Joe wants can happen if either the team has stacked up enough cash to cover all the signing bonuses and escrows or they get the players to buy into some type of more exotic guarantee approach to spread the cash hit out.

[Luvnit2]

(02-06-2025, 07:32 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Those are both the fake numbers that are released to make it look better, not the guaranteed at signing which are the REAL guarantees.
https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/contracts/_/position/wr/sort/initial_guaranteed/dir/desc

If both of Jefferson's legs fall off tomorrow, he will not get $110m. The same with Lamb's $100m.

Jefferson got $88.743m guaranteed at signing.
Lamb got $67m.

Those are the real numbers.

- - - - -

Example:
https://www.nfl.com/news/russell-wilson-broncos-contract-extension-five-year-245-million
"includes $165m guaranteed"

But Wilson didn't see $165m out of that contract, because that was the fake inflated "guarantees". What he got was $124 ($123m from the Broncos and $1m from the Steelers), because that was the actual guaranteed money.
https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/player/_/id/9885/russell-wilson

Guaranteed at signing is largely the only number that truly matters. The rest is for show. That's why Davante Adams' deal was so tradeable despite being on a 5yr/$140m deal... only $22.75m of it was guaranteed at signing.

Amon-Ra St Brown got a 4yr/$120m extension last offseason and 2025 will be the first year of it, but after 2025's $13.9m cap hit the Lions could already get out of it with just $16.7m in dead cap because it only had a $34.6m guarantee at signing despite the gaudy looking "$77m guaranteed" that is ostensibly attached to it. 

TY, I trusted the reporting. I have some homework. it can get confusing especially extensions. It is my understanding am extension for Chase takes int consideration the contract of 21+ million already baked in. All would be guaranteed. Then the actual extension alters the cap and guaranteed portion. But again, maybe I am wrong.

I need to check out how they calculated Burrows extension for cap and guarantees. Here is JB contract.
https://www.spotrac.com/news/_/id/2013/breaking-down-joe-burrows-275m-extension

Here is explanation on his guaranteed calculation within the link above.

The Guarantee Structure

It’s another wow here. Lamar Jackson’s $135M was the previous high guarantee at signing figure (Deshaun Watson excluded). But Burrow’s $146.51M soars to the top with this new deal, including 3 years of fully guaranteed compensation through 2025.

That said, it wouldn’t be fair to ignore that Burrow already had $35M fully guaranteed allocated on his rookie contract, so accounting for that lowers this new guarantee at signing figure to $111.4M - still $11.4M more than Justin Herbert secured ($100M), and plenty more than Jackson’s adjusted number when accounting for the offered franchise tag ($102.6M).

On the 5th league day of 2025, another $35.25M becomes fully guaranteed (his 2026 compensation). All of that is guaranteed for injury at the time of signing.

On the 5th league day of 2026, another $18.3M becomes fully guaranteed (a portion of his 2027 compensation). The remaining $18.95M fully guarantees in March of 2027.

That brings us to a practical guarantee total of $219.01M, through the 2027 season, 2nd only to Deshaun Watson’s $230M.

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(02-06-2025, 09:20 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: TY, I trusted the reporting. I have some homework. it can get confusing especially extensions. It is my understanding am extension for Chase takes int consideration the contract of 21+ million already baked in. All would be guaranteed. Then the actual extension alters the cap and guaranteed portion. But again, maybe I am wrong.

I need to check out how they calculated Burrows extension for cap and guarantees.

Yeah, you need to make sure it includes the words "guaranteed at signing" rather than just the word "guaranteed", because if it's a "guarantee" that you have to earn 3-4 years down the road, that's not actually a guarantee at all. 

Dak Prescott's recent contract is actually a huge example of that. He got 4yr/$240m and $231m of it is "guaranteed" which could be reported as "the highest guarantee in NFL history" (more than Watson's $230m and Burrow's $219m).... but the amount guaranteed AT SIGNING is actually $129m, which is 6th in the NFL and well behind Burrow's $146.5m, and WAY behind Watson's $230m (which again is why that contract was so absurd).

[*jason*]

(02-06-2025, 07:58 PM)Soonerpeace Wrote: Some of you aren’t paying attention. There’s an excellent chance what Joey B says will happen. What this franchise needs is better success in the draft and lesser extent free agency.

What they really need is better ownership and a FO. Even if they get it all done, they've still cost themselves unnecessary millions. Ja'Marr should've been done last year, Tee two years ago. Both would've been cheaper.

[Luvnit2]

If I am calculating this correctly, you are partially correct. They have escalators adding to the guarantee at signing. Here is JJ contract guarantee structure.
https://www.spotrac.com/news/_/id/2329/breaking-down-justin-jeffersons-140m-contract-extension

After March of 2026, JJ is guaranteed the entire 110 million.

Guarantees
The full guarantees at signing within this contract surmise to $88.743M, which includes the near $37M signing bonus, minimum base salaries this and next season, a $30M option bonus for 2025, and nearly $19M of his 2026 compensation.

Furthermore, another $7M of 2026 salary becomes fully guaranteed next March, and an additional $14.25M of 2027 salary fully guarantees in March of 2026. All of this compensation is guaranteed for injury at the time of signing, and because of the year-early vesting nature, is considered practically guaranteed.

This amounts to a practical guarantee of $110M, and a practical contract value of $125.7M over the next 4 seasons.

[Luvnit2]

I hope my learning on the fly about contracts structure and contract guarantee is not boring anyone.

To recap using signing tee to a long term deal I learned a few things:
1. Bengals can allocate signing bonus however they like. It does not have to be the same each year. I saw it in Joe's structure. if they gave Tee a 25 million dollar signing bonus for a 4 year contract, they could allocate towards yearly cap as follows:
Year 1 - 2 million
Year 2 - 3 million
Year 3 - 6 million
Year 4 - 9 million
The less money has in cap year, the lower the allocation to the yearly cap number lower.

2. Bengals can escalate Tees guaranteed portion. They could do over guarantee of 50 million, but allocate as follows:
Sign at contract guarantee 35 million
After year 2 add 7 million to guarantee
After year 3 add 8 million to guarantee

Important because if he has injury issues in first 2 years, can cut him or trade him and not eat a lot of dead cap.

Maybe this will ease some concerns if Bengals decide to sign Tee long term

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(02-06-2025, 09:48 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: After March of 2026, JJ is guaranteed the entire 110 million.

After March of 2026. That means there's a full 2 seasons where it's NOT guaranteed.

If it takes 2 seasons to become guaranteed, it's not actually guaranteed. If Jefferson got hit by a car in 2024, it wasn't guaranteed. If he got hit by a car in 2025, it's not guaranteed. If he gets hit in a car between the end of the 2025 season and March 2026, it's not guaranteed.

- - - - - -

If I "guarantee" you $1m, but have 2 years to decide if I actually want to pay you it, is it still guaranteed? No.

This is the same problem Chase was having with the contract that the Bengals tried to offer him before the 2024 season. The Bengals wanted some of his "guarantees" to not actually kick in until 2027. Which means they're not actually guaranteed, so he didn't want that.

[jj22]

https://t.co/wB51dFjufF pic.twitter.com/Do3a5TqHKr

— Ben Baby (@Ben_Baby) February 6, 2025

Burrow says the quiet part out loud. We need to draft better.