The Cincinnati Bengals’ Ja’Marr Chase likes to remind us that the San Francisco 49ers are not the only team with an unresolved wide receiver contract. Of course, you could say the same thing about CeeDee Lamb and the Dallas Cowboys.
Chase’s situation has arguably been the most interesting, however, at least in my opinion. A former first-round pick, Chase is only entering his fourth season, under contract through 2025. While he is eligible for an extension now, the Bengals did exercise his fifth-year option, giving them another controlling year.
The Bengals have struggled to admit it, but Ja’Marr Chase has been staging a hold-in throughout training camp. He even failed to report to practice one day earlier this week, though he reportedly traveled with the club. Still, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk warns this could be a problem if the Bengals don’t resolve it soon.
“He is holding in. The Bengals are cheap. The Bengals are stubborn. The Bengals may be misplaying this”, he said of the Ja’Marr Chase situation on 93.7 The Fan with Andrew Fillipponi and Chris Mueller. “They’re either gonna get this done in the next week or so or it’s gonna blow up and become a completely ugly mess. They’ve done their best to hold it together now, but it could get very ugly if the Bengals don’t wake up and take care of this soon”.
The fifth-overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, Ja’Marr Chase is a perennial Pro Bowler with 3,717 receiving yards. He averages nearly 10 touchdowns per year, and even owner Mike Brown knows just how essential he is. And yet Brown is finding it difficult to pry open that creaky old wallet of his.
According to Florio, Chase’s contract included a $3.8 million bonus for reporting to training camp. He believes that Chase would have held out if not for the alternative of losing out on almost $4 million. Teams penalize players for skipping training camp practices, but you don’t want to lose an earned bonus.
Ja’Marr Chase is not the first key Bengals player upset by the owner’s stingy practices. While he ended up reporting, Bengals WR Tee Higgins is not happy about playing under the franchise tag. He said last year that he learned from how the team treated former Bengals S Jessie Bates III. Yet he showed up anyway, perhaps feeling defeated knowing that the Bengals won’t pay him.
And there is a good chance the Bengals don’t pay him at all, considering their need to pay Chase. Mike Brown is hoping that he can put it off for another year, but Chase is trying to force the issue. In the team’s defense, few non-quarterback first-round picks receive their extensions after three years. But Chase is not most first-round picks, and the Bengals are well aware of that.
