The Cincinnati Bengals made headlines Sunday by reaching an agreement on long-term contract extensions with wide receivers Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, bringing to an end a years-long saga surrounding whether or not the Bengals would bungle their relationships with the two stars.
As has widely been reported, both players set records with their contracts, with Chase now the highest-paid non-quarterback in league history and Higgins the highest-paid WR2 in the league. What has also been widely reported is how much extra it cost the Bengals by not addressing the matter earlier, specifically by waiting an entire year to ink extensions for both players.
Chase, like all players selected in the 2021 NFL Draft, became eligible to sign an extension at the conclusion of the 2023 NFL regular season in January of 2024, while Higgins has been eligible for an extension for more than two years since the curtain came down on the 2022 regular season. The price the Bengals paid for not reaching agreement on these extensions earlier is tens of millions of dollars.
Those tens of millions are the cost of waiting, and they certainly are not the first team in the league to have to pay handsomely after dragging their feet on an extension. Waiting cost the Dallas Cowboys plenty when they allowed the market to rise before signing Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb to extensions in the summer of 2024.
Specifically, it was just last April that the Philadelphia Eagles signed A.J. Brown to a three-year, $96 million extension that made Brown the highest-paid wide receiver in the NFL, with Justin Jefferson of the Minnesota Vikings pushing the top of the market even higher with a four-year, $140 million contract in June.
In short, over the course of the past year, the Bengals have watched the price tag for Chase climb by more than $10 million per season. Last March, the top of the receiver market was occupied by Tyreek Hill on a $30-million-per-year contract signed in 2022, a mark that has been exceeded by five different receivers over the course of the past year.
In the case of Higgins, the top of the second wide receiver market has not seen quite the same explosive growth, but waiting certainly cost Cincinnati significant money. Prior to Higgins’ deal, the top contract for a number two wideout was DeVonta Smith of the Philadelphia Eagles at $25 million per year, a contract signed by Smith not even two weeks prior to the Eagles making A.J. Brown the highest-paid receiver in the league.
So, while the Bengals and their fans should certainly be happy that they have Chase and Higgins secured for years to come, the reality is the team could likely have signed the duo to lower-value contracts had they done so last offseason. Looking no further than the contracts signed by the Eagles last April, had the Bengals gained first mover advantage by extending Chase and Higgins before the Eagles extended Smith and Brown, there is a very real chance Chase and Higgins could have been signed for $32 million and $25 million per year, respectively. If that is indeed the case, the difference between what the Bengals are now obligated to pay the duo amounts to $43 million over the life of the extensions or $10.75 million per year.
Of course, with the explosion of the salary cap in recent seasons, $10 million per year doesn’t go as far as it used to, but cap space is cap space, and competitive teams don’t stay competitive by consistently waiting to overpay.
Let’s hope this helps the Bengals learn to be more proactive the next time a young star is ready for his first contract extension.