The Bengals have been cheap, for many years. Their franchise quarterback has forced them, for once, to not be cheap.
And they’re bragging about it.
The Bengals took to Twitter with an “in your face"-style video (“Actions Speak Louder”) to those in the media who believed the Bengals would behave the same way the Bengals always have. Ultimately, the Bengals broke character — presumably after they realized Burrow would eventually break up with them, if not sooner.
In recent weeks, Burrow sent multiple public messages regarding his belief that the Bengals can, and should, find a way to pay receiver Ja’Marr Chase and receiver Tee Higgins. And it’s fair to conclude that the team’s abrupt turn from planning to tag and trade Higgins to signing him happened after a private message was sent from Burrow that he expected Higgins to be done.
The Bengals didn’t wake up one day and decide to embark on a new, free-spending approach to business. Burrow put a proverbial gun to their head. They did something they didn’t want to do.
Which means it’s possibly an aberration and not the start of a trend.
So if they’re going to brag, they’d better be ready to continue. Pay Trey Hendrickson. Pay other deserving players. Hire more than four scouts, so that the team will do a better job of drafting the young players who will become the stars of tomorrow.
The Bengals are acting as if they’ve turned the page to a new reality that will be characterized by lavish spending and a fresh obsession with winning at all costs. Bookmark the tweet. Let’s see what happens.
Watch the expenditures limited by a salary cap. More importantly, watch the expenditures that aren’t. Will they beef up scouting? Will they otherwise spare no expense to lay the foundation to maximize the window of opportunity for winning championship(s) under Burrow?
Who knows what they’ll do? But I know this. The moment they revert to pinching pennies on anything, they’ll be reminded about their victory lap for finally behaving the way they should have been behaving for years.
If they’re smart, they won’t let that happen during the balance of Burrow’s prime.
Quarterback is back.
After a one-year hiatus, driven by the fact that the producers couldn’t find anyone to do it, the Netflix Quarterback series will return for 2025.
Netflix announced the move on Wednesday, with a trailer featuring the three subjects of the show: Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, Lions quarterback Jared Goff, and Falcons quarterback Kirk Cousins.
Last year, the effort pivoted to a quintet of pass catchers, and it was dubbed Receiver.
The 2025 show will undoubtedly chronicle the trio of quarterbacks’ respective 2024 seasons, only one of which culminated in a playoff berth. And since the show won’t be landing until July, there’s a chance the storylines will trickle into the offseason — with Burrow pushing the Bengals to quit being so cheap with other players and with Cousins trying to finagle an exit from Atlanta.
Other obvious topics for consideration will be the December robbery of Burrow’s home by a group (allegedly) of Chilean nationals, the benching of Cousins for Michael Penix, Jr., and the failure of the Lions to get beyond the divisional round of the playoffs despite sky-high expectations.
Receiver Ja’Marr Chase has signed a five-year deal to remain with the Bengals. During Tuesday’s press conference to announce the new contracts signed both by Chase and by teammate Tee Higgins, Chase was asked what it was about Cincinnati (other than the money) that made him choose to commit.
And Chase said in the most tactful and positive way positive that, basically, there’s nothing to do.
“For me, I like Cincinnati because it gives me the opportunity to come here and focus,” Chase said. “You know, I’m not distracted out here. It’s not . . . too many things to get me off pace out out here, you know, and it’s strictly what I’m focused on. And that’s really tunnel vision for me to play football. So, I mean, at the end of the day, the food’s not the best. We can work out that, but . . . . I’m from New Orleans, I’m not used to the food yet. But, you know, overall, I mean, honestly, I just think that’s the biggest picture for me. Is that, you know, I don’t have no distractions here. I can just play football.”
He laughed when he said “the food’s not the best.” (It’s not exactly a controversial take.) But the broader point is that Cincinnati is one of those cities (and there are more than a few) where there aren’t the kinds of things that will keep a guy in his 20s from taking care of business.
Besides, it’s a far cry from the comments former NFL running back Willis McGahee once made about Buffalo.
For Higgins, the answer was simpler. He’s one of the few NFL players who has made a career with the team he followed as a youth.
“Man, I grew up a Bengals fan,” Higgins said. “And to have the opportunity to sign a four-year deal with my favorite team that I grew up watching, that’s a dream come true. . . . I couldn’t be at a better place.”
That makes the Higgins deal even more meaningful. Especially since it seemed that, not long ago, the Bengals were apparently willing to tag and trade him.
Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow was outspoken in his desire to see the team sign wide receivers Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins to new contracts this offseason and that earned him some gratitude from Chase at a press conference in Cincinnati on Tuesday.
Chase called Burrow a “big help” in getting the deal done and Burrow’s comments after the deals were officially signed were just as emphatic about what the two wideouts mean to the team. Burrow said he was always confident Chase would get paid, but he was less certain about Higgins and he credited the team for setting the stage for a four-year run with all hands on deck.
“You never know how somebody’s career is going to work out,” Burrow said, via the team’s website. “So we might be together until the end of somebody’s career or we might move on after that. But for the next four years, you know what you’re going to get from us and we’re going to be right here. We’re paying the right guys. Guys who work really hard for what they have. Guys who aren’t going to get complacent or anything like that. Guys who really care about the product they put on the field, and care about the fans and the organization and the people in the locker room. We’ve got the right guys.”
The Bengals also re-signed tight end Mike Gesicki, which was also on the list of things Burrow hoped to see them do. That keeps the offense intact and leaves defensive end Trey Hendrickson as the last piece of the offseason puzzle in Cincinnati.
The Bengals, as we now know, decided to convert the second Tee Higgins franchise tag into a four-year deal. The decision to sign him to a multi-year deal was fairly recent.
Agent Rocky Arceneaux, who represents both Higgins and Ja’Marr Chase, told Kelsey Conway of the Cincinnati Enquirer on Tuesday that, before the Scouting Combine, the Bengals initially planned to tag and trade Higgins. Then, things changed.
"[P]rior to the combine, we talked about the franchise tag and what impact it could potentially have on Tee,” Arceneaux told Conway. “And when they decided to tag him, I had assumed, because we had talked about it prior to the tag with the intent of trading. So we proceeded along those lines, and once the process started, it became clear and evident that the Bengals, like I say, it was more inclined to pay him rather than trade him.”
Arceneaux added that, before the Combine, “I didn’t feel like there was a chance in hell to get both of them to stay in Cincinnati.” After the Combine, Arceneaux began talking to other teams. (It’s unclear whether the Bengals granted permission for those communications.)
"[W]e later learned that the Bengals were declining conversations about compensation for Tee,” Arceneaux said. “And that’s when I realized that they were more inclined to reward him instead of trading him. So, at that point, I think the structure and the tone of the negotiations took a turn for the better.”
It’s unclear why the Bengals pivoted. It would be foolish to rule out the possibility that quarterback Joe Burrow, who had sent multiple unmistakable messages to the Bengals during Super Bowl week, caught wind of the trade possibility and privately intervened, directly or through his representation.
The Bengals might have thought it would have been enough for Burrow to keep Chase, his LSU teammate. Burrow had been unambiguous in his public desire to keep Chase, Higgins, and others.
Regardless, something changed. Before the Combine, Higgins’s agent had the impression they were going to tag and trade Higgins. After the Combine, it changed. It’s possible that, during the Combine, Burrow’s representatives met with the Bengals and said just enough to get the Bengals to have a significant — and expensive — change of heart.
