On Tuesday, March 18, the Cincinnati Bengals announced on their official X account, @Bengals, that the team had signed star wide receivers Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins to contract extensions.
Following a season in which Chase won the receiving Triple Crown with 127 catches, 1,708 yards, and 17 touchdowns, he cashed in on a four-year extension worth up to $161 million per Spotrac. His guarantee of $112 million will make him the highest-paid wide receiver in the NFL when the contract kicks in during the 2027 season.
As for his teammate, Tee Higgins, he signed a four-year extension worth up to $115 million, per Spotrac. Of the $115 million, $40.9 million of the contract is guaranteed.
With these extensions, the Bengals now have 34.5% of their salary cap taken up by just three players. While Joe Burrow, Higgins, and Chase are part of the team’s core, they still need to extend last season’s sack leader, defensive end Trey Hendrickson. A Hendrickson extension will likely push the team to have almost half their salary cap taken up by just four players.
Building their roster like this puts an enormous amount of pressure on the team’s front office to draft well. If they don’t manage to hit on a few late-round draft picks, they could be lacking the depth needed to make deep playoff runs for the years to come.
It’s not all doom and gloom, though. If Burrow, Chase, and Higgins can stay healthy and keep up their elite production from previous years, the team should have no trouble competing in a stacked AFC.
This trio has already proven that they can beat the likes of the Kansas City Chiefs, Buffalo Bills, and Baltimore Ravens when they made the Super Bowl during the 2021 NFL season.
There’s a reason these guys got paid. To keep your homegrown talent around, sometimes you have to pay a lot of money, and the Bengals have done just that.
