CINCINNATI – Other than Ja’Marr Chase being happy to see one of his fellow receivers cashing in, CeeDee Lamb’s contract with the Dallas Cowboys doesn’t mean much when it comes to his contract stalemate with the Cincinnati Bengals.
Certainly not when it comes to urgency on the part of the Cincinnati front office to get it done.
Chase has two years remaining on his contract, and the Bengals own all the leverage.
Lamb’s Deal With Cowboys Doesn’t Change Timeline For Chase, Bengals
Nothing about the Lamb deal speeds up the timeline for Cincinnati ownership.
While Chase has not publicly threatened to sit out games if a new deal isn’t reached, that option never felt realistic.
One rep at a time.
📸: https://t.co/jsfUsfbUzf pic.twitter.com/GH2esOwei0
— Cincinnati Bengals (@Bengals) August 25, 2024
Chase returned to practice during Sunday’s light session closed to the media, and he was practicing again today. And he probably will be Wednesday when the team holds a regular, full practice to begin preparations for the Sept. 8 opener against the New England Patriots.
The Lamb deal also will have little effect on Chase in terms of compensation.
Had Lamb leapfrogged the four-year, $140 million contract Justin Jefferson signed with the Minnesota Vikings, then yes, there would be a new bar to clear for Chase and agent Rocky Arceneaux.
One area that is worth noting is that the Cowboys gave Lamb $100 million guaranteed after Jefferson got $110 million guaranteed from the Vikings.
Chase has been open about guaranteed money being the most important issue to him in negotiating an extension.
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The Bengals don’t typically load contracts full of guarantees, although quarterback Joe Burrow was an outlier by getting $146.5 million of his $275 million extension guaranteed.
The next highest number belongs to left tackle Orlando Brown Jr., with $31.1 million.
Ja’Marr Chase already is third on the team’s balance sheet with $30.8 guaranteed and another $21.8 million coming next year after the Bengals picked up his fifth-year option.
The wide receiver market has exploded this offseason, with Lamb becoming the 11th player at the position to sign a big contract since March.
The others behind Jefferson and Lamb:
- Amon-Ra St. Brown, Detroit Lions, four years, $120 million
- DJ Moore, Chicago Bears, four years, $110 million
- A.J. Brown, Philadelphia Eagles, three years, $92 million
- Jaylen Waddle, Miami Dolphins, three years, $84.75 million
- DeVonta Smith, Philadelphia Eagles, three years, $75 million
- Nico Collins, Houston Texans, three years, $72.5 million
- Michael Pittman Jr., Indianapolis Colts, three years, $70 million
- Calvin Ridley, Tennessee Titans, four years, $92 million
- Jerry Jeudy, Cleveland Browns, three years, $52.5 million
Asked about the receiver market at the pre-camp luncheon, Bengals director of player personnel Duke Tobin said he isn’t concerned about titles or positions.
He sees Ja’Marr Chase the person and player, and his value to the team is based on his play, not what others are making.
“I don’t view people as receivers. I view them as individuals, and I think there’s a lot of pros to having a Ja’Marr Chase,” Tobin said. “I don’t call him ‘receiver.’ I call him ‘Ja’Marr Chase.’ And Ja’Marr Chase is a rare football player.”
“So if it was just wide receiver, I wouldn’t spend a nickel on it,” he continued. “But it’s Ja’Marr Chase, and so we’ll see what we can get done. But I view them as individuals.
“And they all have individual traits, and they’ve all had production levels that mirror or don’t mirror some of the other contracts. We’ve got to kind of marry that up with what makes sense financially to still keep the rest of the team going as best we can.”
While that may seem like a long-winded way of avoiding the question, it does provide a glimpse into how the Bengals are approaching this negotiation.
So nothing about Lamb contract is going to affect how they see things.
And short of topping Jefferson, nothing about a possible Brandon Aiyuk deal is going to move the needle for the Bengals, either.
The Lamb deal might skew Chase’s view a little higher. But again, the Bengals have the leverage in this situation. If Chase wants to get something done before the start of the 2024 regular season, it likely will involve more concessions on his part than the team’s.
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The most likely scenario is for Chase – who earned a $3.8 million roster bonus by reporting to training camp in July even though he didn’t practice once before Sunday – to pocket the remaining $1 million of his salary this season and then start the conversations again in the spring.
The good news for Chase is that his value is only going to go up, but only incrementally.
Typically, the advantage of waiting is to watch as more players at your position continue to reset the market.
It’s going to be a while before someone not named Ja’Marr Chase gets a bigger deal than Jefferson. And Chase may not even be able to scale that range.
But Chase will have a much better chance of doing it in 2025 if he can have another elite season in 2024.
The Bengals, plain and simple, aren’t going to give him Jefferson-type money before they have to – or at least want to.
And right now, the former certainly is the case and the latter doesn’t appear to be.
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