The Joe Mixon domino finally fell for the Cincinnati Bengals with the news of his reworked contract.
Now much bigger names could follow.
Those bigger names — Joe Burrow, Tee Higgins, Logan Wilson, even DJ Reader — are extension candidates this summer and foundational blocks the team would like to have wrapped up for longer than their current deals.
From an outsider’s perspective, there wasn’t necessarily one thing causing a logjam on the business side. But clearing up a little extra cash by reworking Mixon’s deal could be the thing that really gets the ball rolling. According to Pro Football Talk, the new deal has a base salary of just under $6 million, down from his original $9.4 million. Add any other unreported changes on how the cash flows, and it’s a nice chunk of cap space for the Bengals to save.
Were the Bengals not planning moves for after this, they probably would have left Mixon’s contract alone. His salary was too much for his position, but there wouldn’t be a reason to rock the boat with a guy who, along with Tyler Boyd, has been there from the very beginning of the rebuild and played a key role in the culture shift.
Burrow is the next big-ticket item, and both parties have confirmed they are working on it. The deal will require a ton of cash up front and will likely make him the highest-paid quarterback for at least a little while, though conventional wisdom suggests it will also be a “friendly” deal for the team through creative structures.
Should that happen, it will enable the team to keep Higgins. They would also like to get Wilson done, but don’t sleep on Reader — he’s 29, but there are maybe three guys who do his job better in the league right now. He has one year left on his deal, and the team might want to push that out a few more years.
Keep in mind that Trey Hendrickson, Chidobe Auwize, Tyler Boyd and Jonah Williams are also free agents after the 2023 season, so it’s not hard to see why the team wanted to keep its options open with the Mixon move.
Training camp projected to be a very busy time for the Bengals on the contractual side. The team got its housekeeping with Mixon done early, so keep an eye out — the next move could happen quickly.
