Tell me if you've heard some iteration of this take before. Ready? "The Cincinnati Bengals really need to get it together and spend more money on players in free agency!"
You, reader, are probably saying, "Tell me something I don't know!" Except what I do know is that Who Dey Heads know ball better than most fanbases across the NFL. That's what happens when you have a quarterback as all-knowing/ball-knowing as Joe Burrow.
As someone who spends way too much time crunching numbers for imagined scenarios that Duke Tobin and the Bengals' key leaders will never execute in a million years, though, I'd like to think the following nuggets of information are useful and possibly educational.
The Bengals have a lot more money to spend than they let on. Always. But especially this year, with their Big Three offensive trio secured to long-term, flexible contracts.
It's "not likely", but Bengals can restructure contracts for Joe Burrow, Ja'Marr Chase & Tee Higgins to go all-in on 2026 NFL free agency
Realizing I'm in the minority of the general population, OverTheCap.com is a daily exercise for me. Whether I'm gaming out offseason scenarios for the Bengals or other teams who are bound to eclipse them with better-resourced, more aggressive personnel strategies, OTC is a fun tool to utilize as an armchair general manager.
I hear the Bengals still need a GM. Anyway, according to OTC, the Bengals can create approximately $45 million in 2026 salary cap space by restructuring the contracts of Burrow, Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins.
Pulling off one of those moves would be a groundbreaking achievement for this Bengals brain trust. So let's start with just Joe Brrr's deal, since per OTC, it creates the most room at $19.2 million.
Paul Dehner Jr. of The Athletic answered a recent mailbag question about the prospect of a Burrow contract restructure, and had this to say about the likelihood of it:
"Knowing their contract history and that they have never done that, I wouldn’t call it likely. That said, given Cincinnati’s continuity in a sea of change in the NFL and pressure cooker for this regime this year, clearing space for a more aggressive approach to filling a hole this offseason would be an all-in move to match the moment."
We now know as of Friday that the NFL salary cap could go up by as much as 9.5 percent this year, from $279.2 million to as high as $305.7 million.
An insightful observation here that I had to pass along re: when the Bengals have actually spent money on the open market. Very telling stuff.
This is bad news for the @Bengals. The two years they had success is when the cap went down because of COVID. Now smart teams will do whatever they want. https://t.co/m74k1wfZCF
— Dean (Dustin) (@DDMeritt) January 30, 2026
The Bengals would have a shade under $100 million in 2026 salary cap space if Burrow, Chase, and Higgins all got restructured deals.
Haters will argue, "YOU CAN'T KICK THE CAN DOWN THE ROAD ON THE SALARY CAP. YOU'RE ASKING TO GET BURNED. EVENTUALLY, IT'LL CATCH UP TO YOU!"
Uhh...not if the cap just keeps going up in perpetuity? What's to stop that from happening?
I'm not on the opposite extreme end of this discourse, either, where people argue that the salary cap "isn't real." That's true to a degree, but you can't be totally negligent toward it. What I'm proposing for the Bengals hardly falls into that category, which is why I'm advocating for it so hard.
Even with those restructured contracts, check out the respective 2027 cap hits for Burrow, Chase and Higgins: $57.2 million, $37.5 million, and $37.3 million. Guess how much projected cap space Cincinnati would still have next year?
Try on $118.9 million for size. Mind you, that's with a super low-ball 2027 NFL salary cap prediction of $311 million. The cap will for sure be higher than that. It almost reached that high this year alone!
Who are the must-keep free agents the Bengals have on the horizon, you ask? Have a look.
- 2026: RG Dalton Risner and NB Jalen Davis
- 2027: CB DJ Turner and RB Chase Brown
I will hear arguments for left tackle Orlando Brown Jr., defensive end Myles Murphy, safety Jordan Battle, and cornerback Dax Hill in '27 if Cincinnati can wrap its collective noggin around paying *GASP* twooooo boundary corners!
Outside of that quartet, plus Risner and Davis for this offseason, literally everyone else can kick rocks.
Do the Bengals read things? I hope they got the league-wide memo about the salary cap. I hope they know what Over The Cap dot com is. This information isn't hard to find. It's not rocket science. If anything, it makes their annual insistence not to go all-in for a Super Bowl all the more flummoxing.