The Cincinnati Bengals just saw their division rival, the Pittsburgh Steelers, trade their star defensive back, Joey Porter Jr.
This should serve as a canary in the coal mine moment for Cincinnati's C-suite, as the Steelers moving on from Porter will make re-signing DJ Turner and Dax Hill even more difficult.
The Bengals’ history with the defensive backs' agency and their likely unwillingness to offer Hill and Turner the top-of-the-market contracts they want almost guarantee that neither starting corner will be in stripes next season.
Bengals’ Athletes First history isn’t encouraging
Athletes First seems to have cornered the market for defensive backs. Bengals fans are intimately familiar with that agency after David Mulugheta failed to work out a deal between Jessie Bates and the Bengals. Bates went on to get the deal he wanted in Atlanta, even though it wasn't a better offer than what the Bengals offered.
The Bengals’ final offer to Bates was a contract reportedly worth $16.9 million per year. He signed with the Falcons for a four-year, $64 million deal, with an annual average of $16 million. The devil is in the details, we suppose.
Now Cincinnati must work out a deal with Andrew Kessler and Andre Odom after failing to find common ground on extensions for Turner and Hill this offseason.
Odum just saw his client, Joey Porter Jr., traded to the Dallas Cowboys after a contentious offseason in Pittsburgh. With both Hill and Turner represented by Odum and Athletes First, we could be heading toward a similar situation in the Queen City next offseason.
Complicating matters, the Bengals moving Hill back to the slot after making it clear he did not want to do that will not help negotiations either. Hill’s performance as primarily a slot corner at Michigan is what made him a first-round pick in the 2022 NFL Draft.
After a breakout, injury-shortened 2024 season on the boundary, Hill felt like he had found a home after playing safety his first two seasons as a pro.
But with the injuries to Jalen Davis and Ja’Sir Taylor, Cincinnati’s choices were limited, even though Brayln Lux is right there on the practice squad. Even so, the Bengals put a ring on the move after updating their official depth chart with Hill in the slot and DJ Ivey starting on the outside.
Nevertheless, that will surely come up in negotiations, among other issues. At least we do not have to worry about that until 2027.
Don’t expect Bengals to follow Pittsburgh’s lead
One thing we know is that the Bengals’ front office won’t trade either Dax Hill or DJ Turner this season, as the Steelers just did with Porter. Both players are playing out the final year of their contracts and are betting on themselves this season.
The Steelers saw the writing on the wall with Porter and decided not to play his game anymore, getting draft picks in return. The Bengals would never. And we don’t have to relitigate a far-away past to know this is the case.
The Bengals had every opportunity to trade Trey Hendrickson before he ultimately left in free agency, with the hopes of fetching a compensatory pick. While that might not be “nothing,” it is less than what they would have received if they had traded him before things went all the way left.
Bengals can’t afford to ignore writing on the wall
Hopefully, both Hill and Turner will continue their meteoric rise as two of the NFL's best corners, on par with the other cornerbacks who signed lucrative deals this offseason. Even if that is the case, Joey Porter’s exit almost guarantees that either Hill or Turner is playing his last year with the Bengals, with the other getting a franchise or transition tag.
And the Bengals won’t get anything for them except for maybe a compensatory pick.
Regardless, Cincinnati’s experience dealing with Kessler, Odum, Mulugheta, and Athletes First, along with the Steelers trading Porter Jr., should send a clear signal to the front office about what to expect next offseason. And the Bengals should act accordingly. But only they can decide what that entails.
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