It’s hard to say that the Bengals squandered the first four years of Joe Burrow’s rookie deal - in the two seasons he has finished, the Bengals made it to the Final Four, losing in the Super Bowl one year and the AFC Championship another - but it does highlight how difficult it will be for another AFC quarterback to get a seat at the table with Patrick Mahomes.
Much like the NBA of the 1990s, a lot of great players and teams are going to miss out on a championship because Michael Jordan played for the Bulls. Winning it all is tough in the best of times, and it makes things more difficult, both in terms of fan expectations and the task itself, when an opposing organization is putting together a dominant stretch.
Throw in the fact that the AFC North is its own gauntlet, and the Bengals have their work cut out for them, but the core is more than talented enough. They just need to get the timing right.
Playing the Long Game
From the way trade rumors have surrounded receiver Tee Higgins over the past season, a casual fan might assume the Bengals are not well-positioned to retain the stud receiver. That’s not really the case, and it’s hard to imagine when it would be the case under Mike Brown’s ownership in Cincinnati; not to say they don’t hand out big contracts, but this organization does not get out over its skis financially.
The mechanics of building a team around a quarterback and two elite receivers presents trade-offs, but it’s not like the Bengals are buying into a faraway dream of what Burrow, Higgins, and lead receiver Ja’Marr Chase could be; it’s a proven proof of concept that keyed a run to the Super Bowl despite below-average offensive line play.
Cincinnati has $61 million in available cap space (per Spotrac), and while they need to account for Burrow’s cap hit jumping from $30 to $50 million in 2025, Ja’Marr Chase will only then be playing out his 5th-year option, and with the salary cap projected to continue as the NFL transitions out of the COVID years into the gambling money years, there is enough space to pencil in Burrow, Chase, and Higgins at $100-110 million. It would likely mean the end of slot receiver Tyler Boyd’s tenure in Cincinnati, and it could mean that running back Joe Mixon is a cap casualty in the final year of his deal, but those are the decisions you get paid to make if you’re head coach Zac Taylor and head of personnel Duke Tobin.
The Bengals never went “all-in” on Burrow’s rookie deal; it’s just not their style. They spent money when the space was there, signing pieces like nose tackle D.J. Reader, defensive end Trey Hendrickson, and cornerback Chidobe Awuzie to significant deals, but they never traded future picks for the right to do that. So as much fun as it is to think about Higgins winding up as the latest NFL receiver on the move, the Bengals aren’t in the same situation many teams have been in when they traded their star receiver.
Devil’s Advocate: The Tyreek Hill Trade
The counter-argument to this approach is the success the Chiefs have had since trading Tyreek Hill for a haul of draft picks, but while that play made a lot of sense for Kansas City, it doesn’t have a lot to do with Cincinnati’s situation.
Unlike the Bengals, who continued on their usual measured course through Burrow’s rookie deal, the Chiefs were aggressive in the Mahomes era, both before and after they won their first Lombardi. They traded significant draft capital to acquire Frank Clark rather than pursue a free agent, signed Sammy Watkins to a top-of-market deal, and then, after winning the Super Bowl, they strained their financial situation to “run it back” with the same crew.
I’m not knocking any of those decisions - success is success - but the Chiefs had pushed it to the last possible moment to hit the reset button when they traded Hill. That’s not to suggest they would have suddenly been a bad team, but they had hit a point where overbalancing the roster with expensive veteran contracts was going to prevent them from addressing multiple holes on the roster.
Cincinnati’s situation is not remotely close to that. They have cap space, they have a relatively young roster, and they have continued to fill out the roster with rolls of the dice in the draft. The Bengals may need a couple of those lottery tickets to turn up as elite players rather than solid contributors to get over the top, but that’s the NFL - things have to line up - and the observation could also be seen as an argument against trading one of the gems they have hit on away.
Roster Transitions
The Bengals got contributions from their top three picks in last year’s draft (defensive end Myles Murphy, cornerback D.J. Turner, safety Jordan Battle), and with several veterans set to depart, they could use more of the same in the 2024 NFL Draft.
D.J. Reader and Chidobe Awuzie are both set to hit free agency after playing out their second contracts. At their age, they are unlikely to command the same contracts they did the last go around, so they could return to Cincinnati; the Bengals have options on the roster at cornerback, but there is no clear replacement for Reader.
In terms of younger free agents, tackle Jonah Williams is hitting free agency after playing out his rookie deal, but the former first-rounder seems likely to move on after his move to right tackle provided indifferent results relative to his time at left tackle. Williams will get a contract - offensive tackles are always in demand - but he is probably best suited to a swing tackle role at this stage in his career.
That means that, despite efforts to improve the line over the past few offseasons, the Bengals may be targeting another offensive lineman in the first round. They are making progress - Orlando Brown Jr. is, at the least, a competent player at left tackle, and left guard Cordell Volson is a solid value on his rookie deal - but they could still stand to upgrade the right side of the line.
It doesn’t make for the most exciting offseason writeup - the biggest preseason source of drama may be whether Joe Burrow can get through training camp healthy - but if the Bengals play to their standard and the quarterback is healthy, they should be back in the thick of the AFC race in 2024.
Early 2024 Projection: 1st in AFC North