By most accounts, the contract impasse between the Cincinnati Bengals and star wideout Ja’Marr Chase has been a relatively peaceful thing.
If anything, the “hold-in” is the best way Chase could have gone about showing his desire for a new contract while not pulling some of the theatrics seen by, say, Brandon Aiyuk in San Francisco.
And yet, Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio wonders how ugly things might get over the course of the next week:
The situation has yet to explode, due in large part to the fact that the media hasn’t really focused on the situation — not with the Cowboys consuming all of the oxygen and attention. Of course, neither the Bengals nor Chase’s camp have provided many quotes or sound bites that would create headlines.
The simple truth is that it has been ugly. And there’s a good chance that, if Chase doesn’t get his deal by Thursday of this week, it could get a lot uglier.
There’s no question things silently escalated over the last week when Chase returned to practice, then sent a message to the team by shutting down again after some comments by head coach Zac Taylor.
But to suggest things have already been ugly feels off-base at this point. And national media hasn’t constantly gone over the story for a few reasons. Chief among those — the Bengals don’t give up a lot of leaky information and neither do Chase’s reps and frankly, the media had things like the tiring Aiyuk saga to command attention.
Now, things could get nasty as Week 1 practices fire up this week, sure. Chase is going to use his last bit of leverage and it could come at the expense of the team on the field when the games start to matter.
But as we’ve consistently written, it’s reasonable to think that a deal will get done. The Bengals don’t have a great reason to wait now that the market has reset, although it’s a year earlier than the team had probably hoped or anticipated.
Hence, things seemingly taking a turn on the whole Chase contract saga over the weekend.
