Bengals Roster: 5 most expensive cap hits for 2022 season

4. Joe Mixon ($11.4 million cap hit)

Joe Mixon is set to earn $8 million this year in base salary, plus a half-million dollar roster bonus and a $200k workout bonus. Gotta give these guys incentive to show up for OTAs, right? The prorated portion of his signing bonus is $2.75 million.

Mixon might be the rare example of a team benefiting from giving a running back a second contract. That is due, in large measure, to how young he was when he entered the league, and his relative youth when he signed his second deal.

He signed his extension prior to his age-24 season, and he’s now entering the third year of that deal. This is the first year that the deal really spikes, as previously his cap hit was under $10M.  This year, it jumps to $11.4M, with a hit of $12.9M next year, and a hit of $13.1M in 2024.

Although those are big dollars for a running back, he’s important enough to this offense that it would not be surprising to see him play out the entirety of the deal, which ends after his age-28 season. Should his play decline, the Bengals can get out of the contract in 2024 with only a $2.75M dead money hit and pocket $10.4M in cap savings.