For the second straight year, guard Cody Ford is signing a one-year deal with the Bengals.
Ford, who was slated to become a free agent on Wednesday, has instead signed to stay in Cincinnati another year, according to Mike Garafolo of NFL Network.
Ford didn’t get a lot of playing time last year, with just 79 snaps on offense and 72 on special teams, but he did play in all 17 games and the Bengals see him providing valuable depth again this season.
The 27-year-old Ford was originally a second-round pick of the Bills in 2019. He played three years in Buffalo and one in Arizona before signing in Cincinnati last year.
For tags applied to potential free agents, nine is the number.
And there’s nothing lucky about it, not for the players. More than one fourth of the league used in 2024 the device that keeps a player whose contract has expired from becoming an unrestricted free agent.
The tag deadline has come and gone. The NFL has announced the moves made to keep free agents from getting multi-year deals on the open market.
Eight teams used the franchise tag. Here they are, officially:
Baltimore Ravens, defensive tackle Justin Madubuike.
Carolina Panthers, linebacker Brian Burns.
Chicago Bears, cornerback Jaylon Johnson.
Cincinnati Bengals, receiver Tee Higgins.
Indianapolis Colts, receiver Michael Pittman, Jr.
Jacksonville Jaguars, linebacker Josh Allen.
Kansas City Chiefs, cornerback L’Jarius Sneed
Tampa Bay Buccaneers, safety Antoine Winfield, Jr.
Also, the Patriots applied the transition tag to safety Kyle Dugger.
All tags were non-exclusive, which means that another team can — in theory — negotiate with the player and sign him to an offer sheet. If an offer sheet is signed and not matched, the current team gets two first-round picks as compensation.
For Dugger, the Patriots have secured only a right to match, with no compensation if Dugger changes teams.
Yes, the device gives the tagged players a healthy one-year compensation package. It also blocks them from getting an even healthier multi-year deal on the open market.
At one point, the league created a vague impression that receiving the franchise tag amounted to an honor of some sort. It most definitely does not; the tag restricts player movement, and it keeps the league’s best players from pushing the market at the various positions as high as it can go. In turn, that keeps other veterans from getting more, based on a higher market value at each position.
That’s why the league will never relinquish it. Even if the NFL Players Association offered to play twenty regular-season games, the NFL would refuse to give up the silver bullet that keeps free-agency contracts from potentially going haywire.
The Jets are moving on from one of their veteran offensive players.
Per Jeremy Fowler of ESPN, New York is expected to release tight end C.J. Uzomah.
Uzomah, 31, played just 12 games in 2023. He missed the last five weeks of the season with an MCL injury.
But even when he was active, he was not on the field much. Uzomah played at least 50 percent of offensive snaps just once — the Week 1 win over Buffalo. He finished the season with eight receptions for 58 yards with a TD.
Uzomah has one year remaining on the three-year deal he signed with New York in 2022. He caught 21 passes for 232 yards with two TDs in 15 games during his first season with the Jets.
A Bengals fifth-round pick in 2015, Uzomah spent his first seven years with Cincinnati. He had his best season in 2021 when the Bengals reached Super Bowl LVI. He made 49 receptions for 493 yards with five TDs before catching another 15 passes for 146 yards with a touchdown in four postseason games.
Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow said in January that he was expecting Tee Higgins to be back with the club in 2024.
Cincinnati has taken a step to make that happen by placing the franchise tag on the receiver. But there’s still a chance the club could entertain trade offers for Higgins.
Still, Burrow said in an interview over the weekend with ESPN’s Ben Baby that Higgins is particularly important for Cincinnati’s offense.
“Having him back this year,” Burrow said, “obviously, I hope we’re going to have him longer, but it’s exciting for me to have him this year and then it’s a nice little payday for him. Then hopefully he gets another one here soon.”
Burrow and Higgins were a part of the same 2020 draft class, when Burrow was the No. 1 overall pick and Higgins was selected at No. 33 overall to start the second round.
In 12 games last season, Higgins caught 42 passes for 656 yards with five touchdowns. He’s caught 257 passes for 3,684 yards with 24 touchdowns over the first 58 games of his career.
Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow has a date in mind for a full return from his right wrist injury.
Burrow had season-ending surgery to repair a torn ligament in his wrist that he suffered in a November game against the Ravens. He told Ben Baby of ESPN.com that he has progressed to throwing small medicine balls and expects to resume throwing footballs during the team’s organized team activities this spring.
“I think middle of May is when I am expecting to kind of be cleared for full contact and everything,” Burrow said. “Over the next month [to] month and a half, we’ll kind of decide all those things.”
Burrow’s 2023 season began with a calf injury and the pair of ailments contributed to the team missing the playoffs after making it to the Super Bowl and the AFC Championship Game at the end of the two previous seasons. Burrow said “the injuries were what they were last year, but we weren’t good enough in a lot of different places to make a Super Bowl run in my opinion” and added that he’s “excited about the challenge that we have” to turn things back around in 2024.
