The Cincinnati Bengals are one of only two teams in the NFL that don’t have a general manager, but it seems like they might have one now: Joe Burrow.
Sure, he’s actually the quarterback, but he might as well be the Bengals’ general manager because he was the catalyst for Cincinnati’s two biggest moves of the 2025 offseason and those were the new deals for Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins that came on Sunday night.
Chase is getting a four-year, $161 million extension, which makes him the highest paid non-quarterback in the NFL at $40.25 million per year. As for Higgins, he landed a four-year, $115 million deal that makes him highest paid No. 2 receiver in the NFL at $28.75 million per year.
The deals were shocking, but that’s mostly because this isn’t something the Bengals usually do. You’d have better luck trying to steal raw meat out of the mouth of an actual Bengal tiger than getting an extra dollar out of this Bengals’ front office in a negotiation. The Bengals love to play hardball in negotiations and it’s worked for them plenty of times, but this time, they gave Higgins and Chase the keys to the vault.
Bengals working to retain Trey Hendrickson after giving Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins massive deals, per reports
Tyler Sullivan
Fair or not, the Bengals have a reputation around the NFL for being cheap and that was fully on display last year when both Higgins and Chase were each trying to negotiate a new deal. After being hit with the franchise tag in 2024, Higgins was looking to get an extension, but based on comments from owner Mike Brown, it seems pretty clear that the Bengals weren’t on the same page with Higgins about what he should get paid.
“You can’t just pay people willy nilly,” Brown said in July 2024. “You’re restricted on how much you can pay, and we really like Tee Higgins. We would wish to sign him, but it has to be at a certain level to fit within the cap or it can’t be done.”
As it turns out, you can pay people “willy nilly” if your star quarterback essentially demands it. Higgins and Chase were both clearly frustrated with the Bengals last season — Chase even sat out all of training camp — but the tide changed in the organization after a Monday night win over the Dallas Cowboys in Week 14. In that 27-20 victory, Burrow threw for 369 yards and three touchdowns, including a 40-yard game-winning score to Ja’Marr Chase with just 61 seconds left to play.
Following the game, Burrow brought up Higgins’ contract.
“I’m confident that I think we’re gonna be able to do what it takes to bring Tee back,” Burrow said at the time. “I know that I’m gonna do what it takes to get him back, and so is he. We’ve had those talks.”
At that point, it was as if Burrow decided that his new personal mission was to make sure the Bengals’ core group of players stayed together. Two months later, the star QB showed up to Super Bowl week in New Orleans and while he was there, he sent a very clear message to the Bengals’ front office: Get my guys under contract.
“We have the cap space to get it done,” Burrow said. “I want to make it happen.”
Burrow specifically mentioned Chase, Higgins, Trey Hendrickson and Mike Gesicki. For the Bengals front office, this was Burrow holding their feet to the fire.
After Burrow’s media rounds at the Super Bowl, the Bengals basically had two options:
Option 1: Make their star quarterback mad by not doing what he wants and make him even more upset by possibly trading away two of his guys (Higgins and Hendrickson).
Option 2: Make their star quarterback happy by doing exactly what he wants.
The Bengals tried Option 1 with Carson Palmer and that was a disaster. The former No. 1 overall pick became so frustrated with the organization that he eventually decided in 2011 that he’d rather retire than play for the Bengals. Not that Burrow was at that point, but you can bet the Bengals wanted to make sure he never came close to reaching it.
Back in December, Palmer said he was starting to see “frustration” on Burrow’s face, the same kind of frustration he felt during his eight seasons in Cincinnati.
“It looks to be building and weighing on him,” Palmer said.
Burrow didn’t reach the boiling point that Palmer reached and that’s because the Bengals actually came through for Joey Franchise.
Mike Brown once referred to NFL starting quarterbacks as the “Queen Bees” of the team. Yes, I had to watch an entire National Geographic documentary to fully understand his statement, but I can tell you this: The rest of the hive doesn’t survive without the queen and Brown knows his team can’t compete/survive without a true franchise quarterback.
As long as Burrow is playing at a high level, he’s going to get what he wants. Of the four players Burrow mentioned, the Bengals now have three of them under contract and it won’t be surprising if they figure out a way to get a deal done with Hendrickson to complete Burrow’s wish list (The two sides are already back at the negotiating table).
Burrow put all the pressure on the Bengals, and now, with Higgins and Chase signed, the pressure is on squarely back on him because he got exactly what he wanted. The band is back together, which means there can’t be anymore slow starts, there can’t be another season of missing the playoffs. If you tell your team these are the players you need to win, then you have to win.
For the Bengals, there’s also plenty of pressure. When you’re paying your starting quarterback and his two favorite receivers an average of $124 million per year, that means you have to save money in other spots on the roster and you do that by drafting smart and finding low-cost free agents who can have an instant impact. So the pressure is on the Bengals to nail both the draft and the second wave of free agency.
For the past few weeks, the Bengals’ offseason felt like it was on the brink of disaster, but then the team backed up the Brinks truck to Chase and Higgins, and now, it feels like the organization has finally proven that it’s going to do whatever it takes to win a Lombardi Trophy with Burrow.
The Bengals have been operating the same way for 68 years,
