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"He's a key player. Next to Joe (Burrow), he's
our next one. He knows it, we know it," Brown said Monday. "This
may take a while. We are gonna bend over backwards to get it
done. I can't tell you when, though."
Keeping Chase could cost Cincinnati more than $30 million per
season based on the most recent contracts with top-of-market
wide receivers. His former LSU teammate Justin Jefferson reset
the market with a four-year, $140 million contract ($35 million
per season) that eclipsed the $32 million per year Eagles
wideout A.J. Brown receives. Amon-Ra St. Brown signed a
four-year deal worth $30.002 million per year with the Lions,
which is $200,000 more than All-Pro Dolphins wide receiver
Tyreek Hill ($30 million AAV).
Brown said the timing for negotiations is not great, preferring
to hold contract talks in the offseason.
"With the cap and how it works, it's a little different," Brown
said. "Things can happen. Opportunities can arise unexpectedly,
and you can put deals together. We aren't going to say 'Oh no,
we aren't going to do that deal' if it is the right deal. It's
not so likely that this is a good time to negotiate. The
offseason is a better time. We try to keep focused on the
football part. I am not going to rule anything out, but I will
tell you that the dye has probably been cast."
Bengals No. 2 wide receiver Tee Higgins is playing on the
one-year franchise tender after not signing a long-term
extension in the offseason.
Bengals director of player personnel Duke Tobin made a clear
delineation with where contracts stand, suggesting the blue-chip
tag on Chase as a "rare" talent defines him more than the
position of wide receiver.
"I don't view people as receivers. I view them as individuals,
and I think there's a lot of pros to having a Ja'Marr Chase. I
don't call him, ‘Receiver.' I call him, ‘Ja'Marr Chase.' And
Ja'Marr Chase is a rare football player," Tobin said. "We'll see
what we can get done. But I view them as individuals. And they
all have individual traits and they've all had production levels
that mirror or don't mirror some of the other contracts."
--Field Level Media [© 2024 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
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