Quarterback contracts, when you have a good one, don’t follow the same patterns as those for any other position. For starters, it’s routine to get extensions done not with one year left on their contracts but two.
That’s where the Cincinnati Bengals are this offseason with Joe Burrow. At least, they will be after they exercise his fifth-year option, which is a foregone conclusion. Three years into his NFL career, he’s won two division titles and competed in two conference finals, nearly winning a Super Bowl.
That’s an awful lot of success relative to Bengals history. In fact, his five postseason wins doubled their total since their inception. And now the key focus is keeping together what they have so they can give themselves as many shots at a title as possible. That’s where wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase believes Burrow is.
“At the end of the day, I don’t think Joe’s really too worried about how much money he’s gonna make because he’s already making a tremendous amount”, he said yesterday during an NFL Network segment, via Andrew Siciliano. “It all will work out. I think Joe knows what he wants and how he wants to set up his contract to keep some of his weapons around him, and I think that’s the biggest part for him”.
While the Bengals may be perceived as among the stingiest franchises in the NFL, teams just don’t let young quarterbacks like Burrow with his talent and his resume get out from under them. More likely, it would be Burrow who ends the relationship first, whenever that might be.
The first-overall pick in 2020, Burrow has put up big numbers the past two years. He’s thrown for 9,086 yards in that span over 32 games, completing over 69% of his passes with 69 touchdowns to 26 interceptions and a 104.2 passer rating, averaging 8.1 yards per attempt and over 7.1 adjusted net yards per attempt.
He’s also gone 22-10 as a starter during that time, as well, which isn’t bad at all, averaging an 11-5 record during that time. They finished with a 12-4 record during the 2022 season (the Bengals missing one game because of the medical emergency involving Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin).
Cincinnati has been preparing for this for years now, ever since they drafted Burrow, understanding that in time they would have to budget for a franchise quarterback. He could certainly conceivably land the biggest contract of all time on a per-year basis.
The structure, though, matters more than the amount. It’s about cashflow and the means of adjustment. This is one way in which the Bengals are like the Steelers. Because they try to minimize the use of signing bonuses, they have more flexibility than many teams to adjust their big cap numbers when they need to.
Burrow has already made over $30 million in his career, which, you know, should be plenty to live on for the rest of his life. He’s only due another $5.5 million or so in 2023, however. So if he really wants to get paid, he’d probably be wise to make sure he doesn’t play any more cheap years. The good news is the team already has over $35 million in cap space, which is a good place to start.
