Bengals Beat: Ja’Marr Chase Set To Become ‘Highest-Paid Non-Quarterback’, Bengals ‘Believe the future is bright in Cincinnati’ For Tee Higgins

INDIANAPOLIS — Words are cheap. Contracts for franchise building blocks are not.

Bengals Director of Player Personnel Duke Tobin and head coach Zac Taylor said all the right things Tuesday at the opening of the week-long NFL Combine here in Indianapolis when it came to the team’s efforts to re-sign its top three stars not named Joe Burrow.

Ja’Marr Chase is in the final year of his rookie contract and will command a contract in the neighborhood of four years and $160 million, with guaranteed money north of $100 million.

“We are prepared to do what is necessary to get him done. There is framework there,” Tobin said. “Ja’Marr is always going to be our priority. He’s a fantastic football player, he’s going to end up being the number one paid non-quarterback in the league.”

“We want to make (Ja’Marr) the highest paid non-quarterback in this league,” echoed Taylor. “He’s deserved that, went into a year and won the Triple Crown and did all the things he could do for us to just have a tremendous year.”

It’s always dangerous to make presumptive statements on contracts, especially involving a team like the Bengals that have always been tight-lipped and tight on the purse strings. But it certainly seems like the Bengals know getting a deal done with Chase is not an option – it’s a necessity to show Joe Burrow they’re serious about winning. Signing Burrow two years ago was the first domino to fall in demonstrating they have it in them to get the deal done with a megastar.

Tee Higgins is not going to take a hometown discount. Nor should he. He’s proven since he came into the league in 2020 that he’s an elite-level production receiver who gives the Bengals an added valuable dimension when on the field. He will require a deal between $28 and $30 million a season for at least three years and guaranteed money in the neighborhood of $75 million to $90 million.

Trey Hendrickson is tied into a contract for 2025 that will pay him $21 million, well below the market price for an edge rusher who led the NFL in sacks in 2024 with 17.5.

With the NFL salary cap rising to $279.5 million this season and the Bengals with $61 million in cap space, the Bengals can afford all three players.

“We are fortunate. We’ve got a lot of really good football players, fantastic football players, and we’re fortunate to be in a position to where we can fit them all in,” Tobin said Tuesday, sounding the most positive tone yet that the Bengals feel they have the space to get the stars signed and aligned.

“We’ve managed our cap well, we’ve got low dead money. We want a high payroll and low dead money so the people that are in Cincinnati playing for us can get all the money. That’s what we want. And we’re in a position to re-sign these guys, and it’s a good position to be in. We’re going to attack it. We don’t want to just re-sign these guys and pay more or the same football team we had last year. We want to add to it as well. So we want to re-sign these guys, reward them for their ability level and add to the football team. It’s a tall task. We think we’re up to it, and Katie’s got us in position to attack it well.”

It’s not often you hear someone with the Bengals front office detail with such positivity that the team has the desire and budget to sign their star players. Tobin went on the PR path Tuesday to message the encouraging tone, starting with Higgins.

“We want a long-term deal with Tee,” Tobin said. “We’re going through the negotiation process, the details of which I’m not going to share. We’re not just paying guys for what they’ve already done. And so obviously we’re looking to do a long-term agreement with Tee. So we believe the future is bright in Cincinnati for him.”

Higgins is coming off a season in which he caught 73 passes for 911 yards and a career-best 10 touchdowns. His best seasons came in 2021 and 2022 when he caught 74 passes each season, went over 1,000 yards receiving each year and totaled 13 touchdowns in the two years.
The Bengals advanced to Super Bowl LVI in ’21 and returned to the AFC Championship the next season, only to lose on a last-second field goal to the Chiefs.

“We’ve tried to make a lot of runs at Tee. Maybe this is the year,” Tobin said. “He would be valued by other teams, and they sense he’s close to free agency and those guys don’t get to free agency. Maybe that bids him up, I don’t know. We’re trying to reward him for what he’s done and what we think he will do going forward for us. We think we have a pretty clear vision of what that is, and what some comps around the league look like.

“If some of those comps are (first round picks) for some teams, great, but we feel like we’ve got our arms around it. It’s just a matter of if they’re seeing things in a different light.”

With the 30-year-old Hendrickson, the sweet spot figures to be north of $27 million annually over 2-3 years.

“We are trying actively to get a deal done with Trey,” Tobin said. “It’s just a matter of coming to an agreement on what that looks like and what fits for us with the other things that we’ve got coming. But we value Trey, and we know what he is. He’s a big part of our team and he’s 30. That’s a data point. There’s a lot of data points that go into what we feel is right, and others that go into what he feels is right, and we’re trying to come to an agreement there.”

Tobin and Taylor said all the right things Tuesday. But all the words Tuesday didn’t stop the clock from ticking as free agency and the NFL Draft quickly approach in the coming weeks.

Other takeaways from Tuesday in Indy:

Duke Tobin believes the Bengals are a championship-level team, ready to get back to the Super Bowl, despite back-to-back 9-8 seasons. “There’s high urgency when you’re a what I consider a high level football team, and that’s what I consider us. You guys can scoff at it, but I consider us a very high level football team.”

Duke Tobin pointed out the blown opportunities from 2024: Hugely disappointed. All of us with the Bengals are very disappointed in the season, as disappointed as our fans are. We have super high expectations for our football team. We believe we have a championship-caliber football team. Our fans believe that as well. We did not achieve what we wanted to achieve. While we finished the year with five straight wins, in the middle of the season we managed to turn wins into losses. Seven times we did that. And it kept us out of a shot to win the championship. We believe we’re a championship-caliber team, and we’ll go to work and put it back together in the best way and we’ll compete for the championship next year.”

Tobin believes improving the defense is a key focus, as the unit struggled to make critical stops and protect leads in the previous season.

Tobin opened presser insisting Bengals believe they are a championship-caliber team now that underperformed due to an inability to close out games

“Alignment” between coaching staff and front office was mentioned several times between Tobin and Taylor Tuesday.

Tobin on defense: “We know our defense wasn’t good enough, it couldn’t get stops when we needed it couldn’t protect leads, it didn’t get off the field and then in critical moments when the game was on the line, it didn’t rise to the occasion.”

Zac Taylor: “We want talented players, number one, but when they’re a talented person as well, it just makes everyone’s life a little bit easier and a little bit calmer.”

Tobin said the team is rooting for Jermaine Burton following his legal troubles at the end of the season but it’s up to him to show he wants a spot on the roster.

Dax Hill is making good progress in his recovery from ACL surgery and is on track to be ready next season.

The Bengals would have interest in bringing back defensive edge Joseph Ossai and tight end Mike Gesicki