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Joe Burrow on Future of Bengals Stars: Time to Pay Tee Higgins, Trey Hendrickson and Ja'Marr Chase
Cincinnati Bengals On SI
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2/6/2025
Joe Burrow on Future of Bengals Stars: Time to Pay Tee Higgins, Trey Hendrickson and Ja'Marr Chase
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00:00
Because we know Joe Burrow, we know what he's done from a stomping for T standpoint, right?
00:08
He's been all over the keep T, keep T, keep T since December 9th on Monday Night Football
00:14
against Dallas.
00:15
So basically two months ago is when he first made the I'm in on T and since then, what
00:20
has he talked about?
00:21
Trey Hendrickson, he's talked about obviously Jamar Chase, T Higgins.
00:26
Today on Fox Sports 1, he mentioned Mike Gesicki as someone he wants to keep.
00:30
But it's those three guys that have been the focus.
00:35
And what I thought today, when at the end of his 10 minute or so interview with First
00:40
Take, Stephen A. Smith said, let's be honest, it's the Bengals.
00:43
How confident are you in the Bengals to keep these guys?
00:47
And Joe Burrow gave us 30 seconds of pretty insightful analysis or just an insightful
00:55
answer.
00:56
Here's Joe Burrow on how they're going to keep their star players.
00:59
That ownership, you confident that they're going to be willing to keep all of those guys?
01:04
The cap is going up each year.
01:06
We just got new TV deals.
01:07
We all want to stay together.
01:10
So we're all going to do what it takes to do that.
01:13
We have great players that have done great things and deserve to be paid.
01:17
They're going to be paid what they're worth, whether we do it or somebody else.
01:19
I hope we do it.
01:20
We've had the discussions that the guys are going to get paid that need to get paid.
01:24
So it's a big off season for the Bengals.
01:27
A couple of things stand out there for me.
01:29
The first one is that he led with the salary cap going up, with TV deals impacting things.
01:38
He's been so adamant about, we want to be together.
01:40
We want to play together.
01:41
I have thoughts on that.
01:43
And then the other part here, and I think this is the big part, this is the element
01:46
that I'm not sure we've heard before, and I'll read it to you again.
01:51
We have great players that have done great things and deserve to be paid.
01:54
All right.
01:55
Well, that's not anything special that he hasn't said before.
01:58
They're going to be paid what they're worth, whether we do it or somebody else.
02:04
I hope we do it.
02:06
And then here's the part that I thought was the most revealing.
02:08
We've had the discussions that the guys are going to get paid that need to get paid.
02:13
We've had the discussions that the guys are going to get paid that need to get paid.
02:16
Now the we is interesting.
02:18
Who is we?
02:20
Is it you and Duke?
02:21
Is it you in ownership?
02:22
Who is the we?
02:24
But that is a pretty revealing quote.
02:27
And to me, Joe Burrow has been so adamant about it, so direct about it, so bullish about
02:32
it for the past two months.
02:35
You look at T Higgins changing his agent.
02:37
You look at Trey Hendrickson, who his agent will reportedly meet with the Bengals as early
02:42
as next week, but in some point in the near future to discuss things.
02:48
And you look at how close they got with Jamar last year, and they did get close to getting
02:52
that deal done.
02:53
It didn't happen, and it's annoying now, but they did get close to getting that deal done.
02:57
And it's like, all right, well, clearly there's a plan.
03:00
I think that's what this is, is there's a plan.
03:03
I think that T, Jamar, Joe, maybe Trey, got together and said, we want to play together.
03:10
We know we want to play together.
03:11
Or maybe this is Joe going to Trey and saying, hey, man, I want you to stay.
03:15
And going to Jamar and saying, hey, man, let's make sure we can keep T around as well.
03:21
And T's like, yeah, I want to be here.
03:22
And so T switches agents, and those things happen, and boom, just like that, they're
03:27
in that position.
03:28
I mean, Joe, on every show he went on on Thursday, said similar variations of things, but that's
03:34
the quote that stands out to me.
03:35
Again, I'll read it out loud one more time for you.
03:39
We've had the discussions that the guys are going to get paid that need to get paid.
03:43
We've had those discussions.
03:45
They're going to get paid.
03:46
And the fact that he cited the salary cap jumping up and the TV deal and all of those
03:51
things, I don't think he's going in blind here.
03:53
I think he's had the discussions with the powers that be.
03:56
I have more thoughts on this, on Joe Burrow, on their chances of keeping their stars in
04:01
what he's doing at Super Bowl 59, because that is pretty unique in and of itself.
04:07
We'll discuss that coming up next.
04:09
One thing that I think is interesting is the feel behind this.
04:13
I've seen some say, oh, well, Joe Burrow didn't do this for Jesse Bates.
04:17
And I think Joe learned from that Jesse Bates experience.
04:20
And I also think that it's twofold here.
04:24
I'm pretty confident, I will say, that Joe Burrow has talked with the front office about
04:29
keeping these guys, extending Jamar Chase, signing T. Higgins to a long-term deal, extending
04:34
Trey Hendrickson.
04:35
I think that's the plan.
04:37
I think that's the plan.
04:38
I think when Joe Burrow left Pacor Stadium the last time he did, it was under the impression
04:42
that those guys would be signed long term.
04:45
Now what Joe doesn't want, and I think why he's talking about it publicly the way he
04:49
is, is he doesn't want this to get stuck in the 11th hour where one of these guys gets
04:54
away, or one of these guys demands a trade and gets traded.
04:57
Trey Hendrickson would be that, right?
05:00
The Jamar Chase deal got really close to getting done, like I mentioned.
05:03
And we were all over this at BengalsTalk.com last September.
05:08
It was basically, the guaranteed money earlier in the deal, it just didn't exist.
05:15
It wasn't there.
05:16
The structure wasn't there.
05:17
They needed more guarantees up front, or earlier in the deal, not necessarily up front.
05:22
It didn't happen.
05:24
And the guaranteed dollars is what held up that deal.
05:28
And I think both sides thought they were going to be able to get it done.
05:31
It didn't come to fruition.
05:33
Jamar obviously took him a few weeks to get back into the mindset of playing football
05:37
again because of the distraction that it was.
05:40
And so Joe Burrow is applying the pressure, even though I'm under the impression that
05:49
he's expecting and that the front office is anticipating getting something done with all
05:53
three of these guys.
05:55
So they're probably telling him, yeah, we're going to get something done with these guys.
05:58
That's our plan.
06:00
And he's wanting to make sure that they don't 11th hour excuse him, because you can only
06:05
do that so often and recover from it.
06:08
And so I think that that's it right there.
06:10
I think that this is a very much, very much a different situation, uncharted territory
06:14
for Joe Burrow.
06:15
He's so outspoken about it.
06:16
I mean, he's going on these national shows and saying these things, and these national
06:20
shows think the Bengals are a joke.
06:22
They think they're at the poor franchise.
06:24
They're not going to be able to keep T. If you talk to the average national football
06:28
analyst, they'll say, oh, well, they can't afford T and Jamar.
06:31
A lot of your YouTube comments, you can't afford T and Jamar, you can't do that.
06:35
That's not how you build a team.
06:37
There's no way the Brown family can do that.
06:40
And Joe saying, yeah, yeah, but we better.
06:43
We better because I know for a fact that there is the cap space.
06:45
There is the cash.
06:46
There is the resources to get this done.
06:49
And he's right.
06:50
By the way, he was also asked on Fox Sports one if he would restructure.
06:54
And I'm going to be very, very clear here, because a lot of your comments talk about
06:58
Joe restructuring like Joe needs to restructure, Joe restructure, Joe restructure, Joe restructure.
07:02
Of course, he's willing to restructure.
07:04
Joe restructure means is that he's going to get some money and the Bengals are going
07:08
to move some money around from an accounting standpoint.
07:11
It doesn't hurt the money that Joe gets.
07:14
It's just they're moving things around, reshuffling the deck a little bit to create more cap space.
07:20
The Bengals don't need to do that this offseason.
07:22
I would probably hold the Joe Brown restructure until, I don't know, 25, 20 or 26, 27, a couple
07:29
years down the line, because they have plenty of cap space.
07:34
They could easily get to $90 million in cap space.
07:37
Jamar Chase's extension is going to lower his cap hit.
07:40
Trey Hendrickson's, not that they need to do this, but if they extend him, would lower
07:44
his cap hit.
07:45
Tee Higgins, they have the cap space to sign him and plenty of room, plenty of room to
07:52
add to their roster.
07:53
So usually you restructure when you need that extra flexibility.
07:58
They already have it.
08:00
So probably don't need to do it this offseason.
08:02
You might want to keep that in your back pocket.
08:04
But Joe willing to restructure for those wondering, and of course he is.
08:08
I've always said he is for the past two months.
08:12
Anytime someone's brought it up, it's like, yeah, Joe would restructure anytime.
08:14
They called him right now and asked him to restructure, he would do it.
08:17
I'm just not sure that's something that they need to do this offseason.
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