Four weeks to go. Let’s dive into everything, as I make my way to Dallas …
• The Cincinnati Bengals’ 27–20 win over the Dallas Cowboys on Monday night underscores two truths about the franchise’s standing, with playoff hopes still very faint. One, Cincinnati needs to do all it can to keep Joe Burrow happy, and since Burrow cares about as deeply about winning as any player in the NFL, investing back into the team would be a good place to start. And, two, that investment should start with Burrow’s right-hand man, Ja’Marr Chase.
I will say that not having Chase, who’s been eligible for a blockbuster second contract for 11 months now, signed as his fourth NFL season draws to a close isn’t entirely on the Bengals. For much of the 2024 offseason, Chase and his camp chose not to engage much, waiting for Burrow and Chase’s old teammate, Justin Jefferson, to move the market in Minnesota.
That said, the Minnesota Vikings struck their four-year, $140 million pact with Jefferson in June, which left two-and-a-half months before the Bengals’ self-imposed Week 1 deadline to get Chase signed long term. Chase wound up sitting out most of the team’s summer work, which impacted the Bengals in September (and, I think, will be remembered as a factor in the team missing the playoffs). There was a last-ditch effort at the end of camp, and leading into the opener, to get Chase signed, which, of course, failed.
As a result, it’s going to be even more expensive to keep Chase. He leads the NFL in catches (93), yards (1,319) and touchdown receptions (15)—and is well-positioned to hold leads in each of those categories to become the fifth receiver ever to win the wideout triple crown. He’s not just the best receiver in the NFL. He’s one of the best players in the sport.
Just as notable, he’s important to Burrow. The Bengals franchise quarterback glowed about Chase before the 2021 draft, and his feedback was a factor in Cincinnati going with the LSU superstar over Oregon OT Penei Sewell, who’s now in Detroit and among the NFL’s very best linemen, with the fifth pick. The chemistry Burrow and Chase have would be tough to replicate, and is unmistakable in how they operate together.
So I’ll repeat what I’ve said all season. Forget your precedents, Bengals. Go to Chase this week, and get him signed. He’s your second player. And happy quarterback … happy life.
• On Monday, we went over why Bill Belichick would consider the North Carolina job—and why I think there’s a decent shot he takes it (even if the NFL remains his preference).
In that reporting, I mentioned the distinction, for a coach, between a college job and a pro job, and how a lot of that goes right back to the place that person holds on one level of football versus the other. In a nutshell, in the NFL, a coach, with at least 31 teams, has to deal with an owner, a team president and a business side that doesn’t answer to him. In some places, there might be scouting and analytics departments sovereign to him, too.
That’s not to say there aren’t entanglements at the college level. There are a lot of hands in those pots, too—from athletic directors to school presidents to boosters and rabid fan bases that can materially impact things. The difference is that in college football everyone answers to the head coach. Period.
In the midst of Ohio State’s tattoo scandal in 2011, school president Gordon Gee was asked if he’d considered firing coach Jim Tressel. Without missing a beat, Gee said, “I hope he doesn’t fire me.” Gee was joking, of course. But there was a stark reality to what he said.
Which brings us back to Belichick. At 72 years old, does he want to go to a place where he has to wade through a bureaucracy of business side people, and Ivy League math majors, and career personnel folks? Does he even believe franchises set up that way—and there are a lot of them—give the coach the best shot to win? Separate from just getting a job, will there be one that buys into him enough to pledge not to operate that way?
Or does he just want to go to a college that’ll be so grateful to land him that they’ll be willing to throw him the keys and say, Go?
I can understand where, at his age, it might make sense for Belichick to save himself the aggravation, and go coach in a place where they’ll build a statue of him if he wins 10 games a couple times and sets the program up to win after he’s gone. Because the one thing I do believe is his primary motivation is very much just to coach.
• One thing that’s interesting as a side note, too, is how the college and pro calendars really don’t match up at all anymore—which makes it tougher for coaches to go from one level to the other as smoothly as they used to be able to.
The college regular season ended 10 days ago. Conference title games finished Saturday, and the transfer portal opened Monday. Dozens of the best players, following the trail that Christian McCaffrey blazed in 2016, opt out of bowl games to prepare for the NFL draft; others leave to jump into the portal. Which means, essentially, at this point, everyone at the FBS level, save for the 12 teams in the College Football Playoff, is on to 2025.
So schools with coaching vacancies have to move fast, with team building for next year already underway across the country. Meanwhile, the NFL season still has four weeks left.
That leaves Belichick in a precarious spot. Does he take the college job he’s intrigued by? Or does he wait on the type of situation the NFL that would satisfy him, when there’s no guarantee that such a situation will exist on the 2025 market?
It’s a tough call, for sure.
• It wasn’t good seeing Georgia’s Carson Beck go down in Saturday’s SEC title game with what looked a whole lot like the arm injury Brock Purdy suffered in the NFC championship game two years ago. And, unfortunately, it has the potential to make a wreck of a redshirt senior season for Beck end in an even worse way.
The feedback I got on Beck at this time last year was—if he decided to come out—he had a good shot to go in the first round, even in a class with six quarterbacks who went that high.
He wound up staying at Georgia, a decision that made sense at the time—he had only one year starting under his belt, and the 2025 quarterback class looked much weaker than the ’24 group (that’s held up since), which would have given him a shot to go much higher.
That shot, at this point, looks like it missed. Beck had three-interception games against Alabama, Florida and Texas this season and generally was shaky against the Bulldogs’ best competition. Some of it can be explained away. This, from a talent standpoint, isn’t a vintage Georgia offense. But it’s also Georgia. So it’s not like he has less to work with than, say, Shedeur Sanders at Colorado, and that’s who he’s competing with for draft position.
And if this injury is as serious as it looked, and since it’s to him throwing arm, there’s a pretty good chance Beck’s draft stock will take a very healthy hit in the aftermath of a season that’s gone the wrong way in just about every way for the fifth-year Bulldog.
• I think it’s at least worth mentioning that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers appear to have come out of their Tom Brady era cleaner than the mighty Patriots did.
The evidence bears that out. The New England Patriots were 17–17 in their first two seasons A.T. (After Tom), missing the playoffs once, then winning a wild card in the second year. They got routed in their one playoff game, 47–17 in Buffalo, over that span, and the team has tumbled toward the bottom of the NFL in the three years since.
The Bucs’ overall record isn’t much better—they’re now 17–15 A.T.—but there’s nuance to their position that separates them from New England. They hit on their next quarterback, Baker Mayfield, where the Patriots got a year from Cam Newton, then what ended up being a draft miss on Mac Jones. The Bucs also won in the playoffs, beating the Philadelphia Eagles in the first round last year before losing a close one to the Detroit Lions at Ford Field.
Also, the Bucs went into those two years without the coach they won their championship, with Bruce Arians having departed less than a year before Brady retired. And as for their trajectory, with a young base of talent coming behind Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Lavonte Davis, Tristan Wirfs, Vita Vea and Antoine Winfield, it’s hard to imagine the Bucs will suddenly end up where the Patriots did in the three years after those first two (New England was 8–9 in 2022, 4–13 last year, and is 3–10 thus far this year).
Anyway, I don’t think this is a result many folks would have expected, given the reputations of the two franchises over the past couple decades.
• There’s been a lot of drama around Jalen Hurts in Philly the past couple of years. The A.J. Brown thing the other day was just the latest chapter. And while I appreciate Brandon Graham backtracking, and trying not to be a distraction for a team riding a nine-game winning streak, Graham was detailed and thorough in explaining his point of view, so it was not, in any way, some sort of off-the-cuff remark he was taking back.
Either way, the Eagles have to reel this stuff in and, with that high on the to-do list, there’s a great opportunity for Hurts to take a step as a leader for the organization.
• The NFL has its annual winter meeting and labor seminar in Dallas on Tuesday and Wednesday, and one of the key things on a relatively light agenda is under the “Ownership Transactions” heading on the league itinerary.
There’ll be votes on transactions for the Las Vegas Raiders, Eagles, Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins. Generally, these involve small pieces of teams changing hands.
Also on the agenda is planning for International Series games the next two years.
• Here’s wishing Cowboys LB DeMarvion Overshown, in the midst of a breakout year in Dallas, a speedy recovery. Overshown tore his ACL as a rookie in 2023, and this injury looks more serious than that one. Horrible luck for a rising young star. (Probably not a good sign when Jerry Jones says on the radio that Overshown will be back in ’25 or ’26).
• For as much noise as there’s been on the Atlanta Falcons quarterback situation the past few days, nothing has really changed internally. Michael Penix Jr. is still taking the normal No. 2 in-season reps. He’s shown improved ownership of the offense, and done well running the scout team against the Atlanta defense … and, for now, that’s really the end of the story. Kirk Cousins is still the starter.
• This stat, courtesy of ESPN’s Rich Cimini, is staggering: The Giants’ and Jets’ combined winning percentage of .192 is their collective worst in more than 60 years. The Jets, for the record, are in their 55th season in the NFL.
• Four teams to watch the next three weeks: Kansas City Chiefs, Pittsburgh Steelers, Houston Texans and Baltimore Ravens. Those four are about to embark on a Sunday-Saturday-Wednesday turn (to accommodate the decision to go forward with a midweek Christmas slate) that certainly could take a toll on players and staff. It’ll be interesting to see where those teams are for Week 18, and then in the first round of the playoffs.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Forget Your Precedents, Bengals: It’s Time to Pay Ja’Marr Chase.
