Great Breakdown of Tee Higgins deal

[Luvnit2]

This may be the best contract ever negoatiated by Katie and Troy for Tee Higgins. Below is the link, great read. It is important to understand all of the incentives have to be included in the cap year for each incentive. By my calculations, he could lose a huge portion of his incentives if he misses games. The more he misses impacts not only his per game bonus, but also he has team incentives for helping us win the Super Bowl. No super bowl win, no bonus. No AFC championship win, no bonus.

The per game and incentives amount to 4.7 million of the total deal per year.

The contract includes a two-tiered incentive package in each of the four seasons. If Higgins participates in 65 percent of the plays and the Bengals win the AFC Championship, he gets $1 million. If he participates in 65 percent of the plays and they win the Super Bowl, he gets $1.7 million.

Nothing in 2025 is guaranteed; however, the $20 million roster bonus is earned five days after Higgins puts pen to paper. The only true full guarantee at signing is the $10 million 2026 offseason roster bonus.

https://sports.yahoo.com/article/inside-tee-higgins-deal-234105996.html

So what did he get? Here are the details, per a source with knowledge of the terms:

1. 2025 offseason 90-man roster bonus: $20 million, not guaranteed but due five days after signing.

2. 2025 offseason workout bonus: $100,000.

3. 2025 base salary: $13.8 million, not guaranteed at signing.

4. 2025 active per-game roster bonus: $2 million total.

5. 2026 offseason 90-man roster bonus: $10 million, fully guaranteed, with offset language.

6. 2026 offseason workout bonus: $100,000.

7. 2026 base salary: $10.9 million, fully guaranteed on the fifth day of the 2026 league year.

8. 2026 active per-game roster bonus: $2 million total.

9. 2027 offseason 90-man roster bonus: $5 million.

10. 2027 offseason workout bonus: $100,000.

11. 2027 base salary: $19.2 million.

12. 2027 active per-game roster bonus: $2 million total.

13. 2028 offseason workout bonus: $500,000.

14. 2028 base salary: $27.3 million.

15. 2028 active per-game roster bonus: $2 million total.

The contract includes a two-tiered incentive package in each of the four seasons. If Higgins participates in 65 percent of the plays and the Bengals win the AFC Championship, he gets $1 million. If he participates in 65 percent of the plays and they win the Super Bowl, he gets $1.7 million.

Nothing in 2025 is guaranteed; however, the $20 million roster bonus is earned five days after Higgins puts pen to paper. The only true full guarantee at signing is the $10 million 2026 offseason roster bonus.

The Bengals have, as a practical matter, a year-to-year option. They can pay him $35.9 million for 2025 (if he dresses for every game and earns the $2 million in per-game roster bonuses), and they can move on before the 2026 base salary becomes fully guaranteed. (It's not guaranteed for injury.)

Because the $10 million guaranteed 2026 roster bonus has offset language, they'd likely owe him nothing if they cut him after one year — since he'd likely make more elsewhere.

As a practical matter, it's a two-year, $29.45 million per year contract. But they're not fully committed to year two. It truly could be a one-year, $35.9 million deal.

Put simply, the contract gives Higgins $9.74 million more than the tag for 2025, and $10 million in (as a practical matter) injury insurance for 2026. While it's his prerogative to take the deal, some would have opted to play on the tag in 2025 and hit unrestricted free agency in 2026.

One last point. Although per-game roster bonuses are regarded as part of the base package, this deal has a total of $8 million tied to Higgins being able to suit up every week. He has missed 10 games over the past two seasons; that would cost him $1.17 million under his new contract.

[Bengalitis]

I would not put the highest base pay at the end of the contract, the 2026 & 27.. is that guaranteed $$$???

[CJD]

(Yesterday, 04:00 PM)Bengalitis Wrote: I would not put the highest base pay at the end of the contract, the 2026 & 27.. is that guaranteed $$$???

No. There is 10 million dollars in true guarantees (With offset language if we cut him and he signs with another team) in 2026, and then he's got another 23.8 million that is effectively guaranteed in the 2025 roster bonus and his 2025 base salary. 2026's 10.9 million dollar salary is guaranteed once the 2026 season begins next off season.

All in all, an incredibly friendly deal for the Bengals. At almost any point (other than the time between today and the 2025 season, and the time between 2026 off season and 2026 season) we could cut him and owe him almost no additional money.

[phil413]

(Yesterday, 04:22 PM)CJD Wrote: No. There is 10 million dollars in true guarantees (With offset language if we cut him and he signs with another team) in 2026, and then he's got another 23.8 million that is effectively guaranteed in the 2025 roster bonus and his 2025 base salary. 2026's 10.9 million dollar salary is guaranteed once the 2026 season begins next off season.

All in all, an incredibly friendly deal for the Bengals. At almost any point (other than the time between today and the 2025 season, and the time between 2026 off season and 2026 season) we could cut him and owe him almost no additional money.

And with the rising prices of WR, they can still get descent trade value if for instance we hit on late round WR talent to replace him and have huge holes on D or OL. 

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(Yesterday, 04:22 PM)CJD Wrote: All in all, an incredibly friendly deal for the Bengals. At almost any point (other than the time between today and the 2025 season, and the time between 2026 off season and 2026 season) we could cut him and owe him almost no additional money.

There's only so "friendly" you can frame essentially a 2yr/$58.9m deal for your #2 WR who last had a 1k season 3 years ago. I really hope Tee balls out in 2025, though, because the Bengals really didn't make any efforts through structure to open up a bunch of cap space this year in an effort to make this team really any better. I guess we're just hoping all our draft picks are hits and our mediocre/subpar/PS fodder guys all take a huge step forward.

[Frank Booth]

I read some atorney who is a bengals fan break down the hits for the chase and higgins contracts. He implied the begals FO purposefully and unnecessarily inflated their cap hits. Which means they limit themselves on being able to spend more money. And the only conclusion that makes sense is either, they are dumb, or they do it to not have to spend more cash. Pretty eye opening

[NUGDUKWE]

My bad. Here's a screenshot.https://t.co/PibsjvyGah pic.twitter.com/9O4aHGBUfg

— Goodberry (@JoeGoodberry) March 22, 2025

Well the word on Twitter has been Higgins took a bad deal from the Bengals to stay and as fans we should recognize that from him. I know the end dollars are good but any other team would've given him more guarantees. Also just depressing to see that we unnecessarily inflate the cap hits year 1. We just handcuff ourselves to limit how much cash we can spend. I know all the talk has been this is what Burrow and these guys wanted so they better step up because it's all on they're shoulders. But the real culprit to success or failure is this front office yet again. We could've very easily saved some room to add players and limit our needs thru the draft yet we choose money over the better chance of winning. It is what it is at this point but I do wish they would sell to someone who values winning a little more over money.

[Luvnit2]

(Yesterday, 04:48 PM)Frank Booth Wrote: I read some atorney who is a bengals fan break down the hits for the chase and higgins contracts. He implied the begals FO purposefully and unnecessarily inflated their cap hits. Which means they limit themselves on being able to spend more money. And the only conclusion that makes sense is either, they are dumb, or they do it to not have to spend more cash. Pretty eye opening

This attorney is not real bright. 

I understand your need to validate the FO is cheap, maybe your frend also, but the team's choices are pay me now (take caps hit now), pay me later (push the cap down the road) or a combination of (pay me now and pay some later).

It appears they decided to in Tee's case to pay me now and pay me later. If your friend was accurate in his opinion, he would know the Bengals could have taken a lot more of the cap hit in 2025 than 23 million. He was slready a 26 million cap hit so we are have equal cap space on his contract, we did not lose cap space in 2025 with his new contract as your friend is suggesting.


Chase very similar. They are only taking on 23 million in cap space in 2025. The net of 2 new contracts in 2025 is 2 million all on Chase's cap hit.
Prior to contract Tee was 26.2 million and Chase was 21.6 million or combined 47.8 million, after two contract Tee is now 26.6 and Chase is 23.6 or a combined 50.2 million.

Looking to 2026 Tee is only 19.3 million (less than 2025 by 7.3 million) and Chase is 26.6 million or 3 million more. Combined they are 4.4 million less in 2026 than in 2025.

This also takes int account the reports on Spotrcac are accurate, we do not know with 100% certainty they are accurate. 

There is no evidence the team attempted to use up 2025 cap space as the attorney suggests so they had anexcuse not to add more players. It also makes no sense because any cap savings they have is rolled over to 2026 anyway.

[Luvnit2]

(Yesterday, 04:55 PM)NUGDUKWE Wrote:

My bad. Here's a screenshot.https://t.co/PibsjvyGah pic.twitter.com/9O4aHGBUfg

— Goodberry (@JoeGoodberry) March 22, 2025

Well the word on Twitter has been Higgins took a bad deal from the Bengals to stay and as fans we should recognize that from him. I know the end dollars are good but any other team would've given him more guarantees. Also just depressing to see that we unnecessarily inflate the cap hits year 1. We just handcuff ourselves to limit how much cash we can spend. I know all the talk has been this is what Burrow and these guys wanted so they better step up because it's all on they're shoulders. But the real culprit to success or failure is this front office yet again. We could've very easily saved some room to add players and limit our needs thru the draft yet we choose money over the better chance of winning. It is what it is at this point but I do wish they would sell to someone who values winning a little more over money.

Do you understand there are 2 different measurements teams must hit or be in violation of the CBA.
1. Each team must stay within the cap space allotted to each team during the league year.
2. Each team must spend  
https://overthecap.com/collective-bargaining-agreement/article/12/section/9


There is no maximum an NFL team can spend, there is only a minimum, but they must stay wiithin the saary cap guidelines.

[NUGDUKWE]

(Yesterday, 05:15 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: This attorney is not real bright. 

I understand your need to validate the FO is cheap, maybe your frend also, but the team's choices are pay me now (take caps hit now), pay me later (push the cap down the road) or a combination of (pay me now and pay some later).

It appears they decided to in Tee's case to pay me now and pay me later. If your friend was accurate in his opinion, he would know the Bengals could have taken a lot more of the cap hit in 2025 than 23 million. He was slready a 26 million cap hit so we are have equal cap space on his contract, we did not lose cap space in 2025 with his new contract as your friend is suggesting.


Chase very similar. They are only taking on 23 million in cap space in 2025. The net of 2 new contracts in 2025 is 2 million all on Chase's cap hit.
Prior to contract Tee was 26.2 million and Chase was 21.6 million or combined 47.8 million, after two contract Tee is now 26.6 and Chase is 23.6 or a combined 50.2 million.

Looking to 2026 Tee is only 19.3 million (less than 2025 by 7.3 million) and Chase is 26.6 million or 3 million more. Combined they are 4.4 million less in 2026 than in 2025.

This also takes int account the reports on Spotrcac are accurate, we do not know with 100% certainty they are accurate. 

There is no evidence the team attempted to use up 2025 cap space as the attorney suggests so they had anexcuse not to add more players. It also makes no sense because any cap savings they have is rolled over to 2026 anyway.

Dude the Bengals are cheap. Get over it. It's not that hard of a concept. I realize we are talking about millions of dollars and it's alot of money that they do spend. But almost all other deals around the league are not done the way the Bengals do them. So why is that the case? 

[NUGDUKWE]

(Yesterday, 05:24 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: Do you understand there are 2 different measurements teams must hit or be in violation of the CBA.
1. Each team must stay within the cap space allotted to each team during the league year.
2. Each team must spend  
https://overthecap.com/collective-bargaining-agreement/article/12/section/9


There is no maximum an NFL team can spend, there is only a minimum, but they must stay wiithin the saary cap guidelines.

It has been a March of extreme cap conservatism from the Bengals, punctuated by choices on Tee & Chase contracts. Most other teams would have significantly smaller year 1 cap hits (PHI, BAL, KC, BUF are all examples) and would be able to fit another moderate veteran contract or…

— Jake Liscow (@JakeLiscow) March 22, 2025

 

[Luvnit2]

(Yesterday, 05:26 PM)NUGDUKWE Wrote:

It has been a March of extreme cap conservatism from the Bengals, punctuated by choices on Tee & Chase contracts. Most other teams would have significantly smaller year 1 cap hits (PHI, BAL, KC, BUF are all examples) and would be able to fit another moderate veteran contract or…

— Jake Liscow (@JakeLiscow) March 22, 2025

 

Has nothing to do with them being cheap. Bengals have never been a kick the can down. the road team, in fact the majority of the teams are just like the Bengals. 

But hey if you help you sleep at night calling your supposed favorite NFL team cheap, keep going for it. I will always disagree. Cheap teams never pay top dollr to any one player, we have done it 2x in a span of a few years. Add 3 as Higgins is the top paid WR2 in the NFL now.

[NATI BENGALS]

(Yesterday, 05:24 PM)NUGDUKWE Wrote: Dude the Bengals are cheap. Get over it. It's not that hard of a concept. I realize we are talking about millions of dollars and it's alot of money that they do spend. But almost all other deals around the league are not done the way the Bengals do them. So why is that the case? 

They want the money paid out that year to go to players actually playing for the team. Not players who played for them last year or the year before.

They intentionally try to avoid dead money. And they don’t like paying guys who are not playing. If that’s how they want to run their business I have no problem with it.

Their cap spend is up there. You can’t really call them cheap. They are not followers.

Just because my neighbor Jerry Jones went and bought a brand new 100k car at a 7% interest rate and traded in his old car he still owed a bunch of money on and is now paying 1,500 a month for the next 8 years doesn’t make me cheap because I was able to pay cash after trading in my fully paid off old car.

[Luvnit2]

(Yesterday, 05:40 PM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: They want the money paid out that year to go to players actually playing for the team. Not players who played for them last year or the year before.

They intentionally try to avoid dead money. And they don’t like paying guys who are not playing. If that’s how they want to run their business I have no problem with it.

Their cap spend is up there. You can’t really call them cheap. They are not followers.

Just because my neighbor Jerry Jones went and bought a brand new 100k car at a 7% interest rate and traded in his old car he still owed a bunch of money on and is now paying 1,500 a month for the next 8 years doesn’t make me cheap because I was able to pay cash after trading in my fully paid off old car.

Sadly we live in a world full of people who live off credit cards at 20% interest and never learned the concept of only spend what you can afford to pay at the end of the month. These same people have no clue how to manage money, but want to chastise our FO who understands it very well. If they were smart, they would learn and follow their lead in their personal lives.

Great post

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(Yesterday, 05:40 PM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: They want the money paid out that year to go to players actually playing for the team. Not players who played for them last year or the year before.

They intentionally try to avoid dead money. And they don’t like paying guys who are not playing. If that’s how they want to run their business I have no problem with it.

Their cap spend is up there. You can’t really call them cheap. They are not followers.

Just because my neighbor Jerry Jones went and bought a brand new 100k car at a 7% interest rate and traded in his old car he still owed a bunch of money on and is now paying 1,500 a month for the next 8 years doesn’t make me cheap because I was able to pay cash after trading in my fully paid off old car.

"We should pay two WRs big bucks! It worked for the Eagles!"
*The Eagles have at least $100m more AAV in contracts on their team than us in each of the four years of the Hurts era.*
"We are not followers! We don't need to spend like them, we're not cheap!"

[NUGDUKWE]

(Yesterday, 05:40 PM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: They want the money paid out that year to go to players actually playing for the team. Not players who played for them last year or the year before.

They intentionally try to avoid dead money. And they don’t like paying guys who are not playing. If that’s how they want to run their business I have no problem with it.

Their cap spend is up there. You can’t really call them cheap. They are not followers.

Just because my neighbor Jerry Jones went and bought a brand new 100k car at a 7% interest rate and traded in his old car he still owed a bunch of money on and is now paying 1,500 a month for the next 8 years doesn’t make me cheap because I was able to pay cash after trading in my fully paid off old car.

But when we just watch the Eagles decimate the Chiefs and every media pundit is praising and marveling how they pack they're roster. So what's it called when we don't follow that? Cheap or dumb? Feels like it's one of the two if not both. Whatever the reason is cheap or not we are limiting the talent we can add to the roster. At a time we have a lot of talent we need to add and have a championship opportunity with the talent we do have. It just doesn't make sense. But why the Bengals aren't going to win.

[NUGDUKWE]

(Yesterday, 05:45 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: Sadly we live in a world full of people who live off credit cards at 20% interest and never learned the concept of only spend what you can afford to pay at the end of the month. These same people have no clue how to manage money, but want to chastise our FO who understands it very well. If they were smart, they would learn and follow their lead in their personal lives.

Great post

They get +500 mil in revenue sharing every year. They could spend a shocking amount and still be well within the amount they make.

[NUGDUKWE]

(Yesterday, 05:39 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: Has nothing to do with them being cheap. Bengals have never been a kick the can down. the road team, in fact the majority of the teams are just like the Bengals. 

But hey if you help you sleep at night calling your supposed favorite NFL team cheap, keep going for it. I will always disagree. Cheap teams never pay top dollr to any one player, we have done it 2x in a span of a few years. Add 3 as Higgins is the top paid WR2 in the NFL now.

 
Yes they did pay the players. They just do it in a way that stops them from adding more talent. Call it cheap or not but we value money over winning. Perhaps that's not cheap but perhaps the should invest in something that's not a sports franchise because one of the goals is winning.

[Housh]

We could’ve had more to spend this year by pushing the cap hits off down the road but we sure are fine with the built in excuse on why we couldn’t get anyone big time done this year



Starting to appear as if the plan was to punish Burrow and the fans by REFUSING to do anything big if we were forced to sign Tee to a deal we honestly didn’t wanna sign.

[Luvnit2]

(Yesterday, 05:57 PM)NUGDUKWE Wrote:  
Yes they did pay the players. They just do it in a way that stops them from adding more talent. Call it cheap or not but we value money over winning. Perhaps that's not cheap but perhaps the should invest in something that's not a sports franchise because one of the goals is winning.

I have called for them to be more creative with the structure of contracts for years. It is their business model, nothing to do with cheap or in. my opinion not wanting to win. If the Super Bowl winner was based on the amount of money teams spend in FA, then the Pats, Chargers and Bears should win the Super Bowl in 2025, they sent the most.

The Bengals have a plan, sorry it is not your plan or someone else's plan (whomever whined about the cap space use) to win it all in 2025. I still feel we can be a very good team in 2025. The Bengals may or may not add more pieces in 2025. I think they will, you think they can't afford more because of poor cap management. We differ on  FO management. I hate dead cap. Bengals FO hates dead cap. Other teams have 25 to 35 million each year in dead cap by kicking the can down the road, you applaud them.

I will take our cap sitaution over the Saints and other teams. Click on teams and look at their dead money and then tell me you are still impressed they don't have that money to spend to. make their rosters better.

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/cap/_/year/2025

Bucs - over 30 million in dead cap space and over the cap right now so they have to do more maneuvering to get under the cap
Rams - over 45 million in dead cap space and over the cap right now so more maneuvering needs to be done toget under the cap
Bills - over 30 million in dead cap space and have to maneuver to create more cap space
Texans - over 36 million in dead money and have to maneuver to create more cap space

Jets - have no franchise QB and heading for over 70 million in dead money in 2025 and a large dead money hit in 2026 as well

I call this gross mismangement by this teams.

I always taught my children, never use a credt card unless you can pay the bill in full by the end of the month. There will be a time if you borrow money you can't pay monthly when you lose your job or an emergency occurs.

I do believe Bengals could structure deals so more of the contract is pushed down the road. But, it has nothing to do with cash, it is an accounting method and nothing more. To say if they had more cap the team would have brought in THE RIGHT PLAYERS WITH THE EXTRA CAP is pure speculation.