The Bengals’ offer would have surpassed Justin Jefferson’s deal, but Ja’Marr Chase wanted more.
In the hours leading up to the Cincinnati Bengals’ Week 1 loss to the New England Patriots, the team was still actively working to get a contract extension done with superstar wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase.
A deal ultimately didn’t come to fruition, and we now have some details on where talks fell apart.
On his podcast, NFL Spotlight, The 33rd Team’s Ari Meirov detailed what prevented the team and Chase from committing long-term.
“They tried Friday night. They even tried on Saturday into Saturday night, and they continued into Sunday morning, actually,” said Meirov. “They could not bridge the gap. It just was not happening. There were numbers they couldn’t figure out. There was a cash-flow issue. There was a years issue. The APY (average salary per year) was fine. It would have surpassed Justin Jefferson, but everything else was not there.”
Meirov also added that the average annual value of the contract was in the $36 million range, which Chase’s camp was fine with, but they struggled with other aspects of the deal and ultimately were not able to close the gap.
When Meirov mentioned a “years issue,” he does not give much more detail, but it is safe to assume the Bengals wanted a four-year extension, while Chase likely only wanted a three-year deal. A shorter deal allows Chase to hit the open market a year sooner to take advantage of a salary cap that will only increase. The Bengals likely wanted an additional year of security with Chase locked in at a rate that will almost certainly be much lower than what receivers are making four to five years from now.
“Cash-flow” issues could relate to guarantees, signing bonuses, or (as has been widely speculated) the Bengals’ actual cash fluidity.
With the season now underway, it looks increasingly likely that Chase will play this season under his fourth year on a rookie contract and that the two sides will return to the table next offseason.
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