CINCINNATI — The Cincinnati Bengals have premier talent on the offensive side of the ball in quarterback Joe Burrow and wide receivers Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, but keeping this trio around long term is going to make things difficult for the franchise from a salary cap perspective.
Bengals owner Mike Brown spoke recently about the team's challenges of wanting to pay everyone what they are worth, but knowing they likely won't be able to do so.
Locked on Bengals host Jake Liscow joined Peter Bukowski on the Locked on Sports Today podcast to discuss Cincinnati's impending contract negotiations with their star players, and what it will mean for the rest of the roster in the coming years in light of Brown's recent comments.
"[Cornerback] Chidobe Awuzie is on the last year of his [rookie] deal, the very valuable nose tackle DJ Reader is on the last year of his deal," Liscow said. "Those guys could be who [Brown] is referring to in some way."
The Bengals did restructure running back Joe Mixon's contract, but with an expected top of the line agreement coming for Burrow ($50M per year or so) Chase ($30M or so) and potentially Higgins as a premier WR2 ($20M) the Bengals could have roughly half their cap space tied up in three players.
Liscow believes the team will find ways to work around this - noting the team's tendency to frontload cap hits in long term contracts and to avoid large signing bonuses - but ultimately this team is going to have to hope they can fill valuable positions of need with players on rookie or very cheap veteran deals if they want to have a balanced enough roster to truly contend for a Super Bowl during this window.