Cincinnati Bengals WR Ja’Marr Chase is among the many players in today’s NFL exercising their soft power: withholding services. The fourth-year perennial Pro Bowler has hardly practiced all offseason, and still isn’t practicing entering Week 1. We don’t know, sitting here today, if that will change in time, but according to Ian Rapoport, he has the Bengals talking contract. A big contract.
“The two sides are in talks to make him among the highest-paid receivers in the NFL, or the highest-paid receiver, higher than Justin Jefferson”, Rapoport said of Chase. “There have been some talks. There has been some progress. But there is for sure nothing done yet, so we’ll see what his status is”.
The fifth-overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, Ja’Marr Chase has 3,717 receiving yards on 268 catches for 29 touchdowns. He is averaging 82.6 receiving yards per game since entering the NFL and already has three Pro Bowls.
And he wants the Bengals to pay him a salary that reflects his value to them, which they readily acknowledge. Even as owner Mike Brown seemingly shot down an extension this year, he called Ja’Marr Chase second only to QB Joe Burrow on the team’s priority list.
Chase is in a slightly complicated scenario because he has two years left on his contract, including his fifth-year option. He is only in Year 4 of his rookie deal, set to earn just $4,862,679. He is on the books at $21,816,000 for 2025, which is his fifth-year option figure. Neither of those numbers even approach what the market says he is worth, though, and there’s the problem.
The wide receiver market skyrocketed again this offseason, and $30 million APY contract are now standard at the top. Chase’s college teammate, Justin Jefferson, paces the position at $35 million, but there are now six wide receivers earning $30 million APY or more.
The San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys recently inducted Brandon Aiyuk and CeeDee Lamb into those ranks, respectively. Ja’Marr Chase will obviously join the club within the next 12 months, as well, but he wants to be on the much, much shorter end.
Quite honestly, the fact that Chase even managed to bring Mike Brown to the negotiating table is remarkable to me. The possibility of the Bengals making him the highest-paid wide receiver is even more staggering. I don’t know that I see it happening, but he will certainly crack the top three.
Honestly, the biggest questions are these: will Ja’Marr Chase play without a new contract, and if so when? And how much are the Bengals willing to pay, or to risk, to keep their Super Bowl aspirations intact?
Because let’s not forget, the Bengals fully expect to win the Super Bowl this year. And they have those expectations because of players like Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase. The Bengals are not stupid; they know how important Chase is. But how far is Chase willing to push it? Is he willing to skip games and force their hand to pay him now?
