The Cincinnati Bengals organization sure knows how to fire up the most painfully aware portions of their fanbase — and that's not meant as a compliment in the slightest.
Bengals supporters have long demanded more accountability from the front office. Now that Duke Tobin has held a season-ending press conference and spoken at the NFL Scouting Combine, maybe the better move is to not put him on the podium anymore.
I'd rather hear the sweet echo of silence than Tobin drone on about going "all-in" every year. Because one key remark from Tobin's Combine media session in particular did not sit right with me.
...You can probably infer what it entailed from the headline of this article. Has to do with Joe Burrow. Buckle up. We're about to get in the friggin' weeds here.
Offseason glory is well within the Bengals' grasp...and they will do absolutely nothing about it
As transcribed by Paul Dehner Jr. of The Athletic, Tobin gave a revealing non-answer about the notion of restructuring Joe Burrow's contract — and before you read this, remember, Duke had the nerve to say the Bengals go "all-in" every year.
“We look at all areas to increase our competitiveness if we have to. Cap dollars have to be counted, so if we can accomplish what we want to accomplish without pushing things into future problems, we’ll do that. If we need that, we’ll consider that as well. Like I said, we’re open to doing anything we need to do to improve our team where we’re satisfied we’re gonna win a championship. That’s our mindset, and that’s the way we’re going into the offseason. But we have resources right now, and we’ll see what we can get done.”
How stupid does Duke Tobin believe the average fan is?
First of all, this shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Bengals have no intentions of restructuring Burrow's contract. They think they have plenty of money to spend, and as Tobin says, they'll operate that way without, and I re-quoth for emphasis, "pushing things into future problems."
Hey Duke, you know what the biggest "future problem" is? Not making the playoffs in 2026. Guess what that leads to? Joe Burrow demanding a trade.
That is THE ONLY FUTURE PROBLEM to account for. And the solution is to spend as much as humanly possible to ensure that doesn't happen.
...And yet here we are. Couldn't-be-more-tone-deaf Duke Tobin, at it again.
What not restructuring Joe Burrow's contract *really* costs the Bengals
According to OverTheCap.com, restructuring Burrow's deal saves the Bengals $19.23 million against the 2026 salary cap.
Using some of my proposed free-agent acquisitions from this epic 3,000-word mock offseason piece, let's explore what not restructuring Burrow costs Cincinnati in the bigger picture. Where applicable, we'll take the average contract predictions from PFF and The Athletic and use round numbers to estimate the next couple years of costs for these players:
- Chiefs LB Leo Chenal: $7M AAV ($6M via PFF; $8M via ATH) — 3 years, $21 million...$6M in Year 1
- Rams S Kam Curl: $12.5M AAV ($8.75M via PFF; $16.25M via ATH) — 3 years, $37.5 million...$11M in Year 1
- Falcons DT David Onyemata: $6.5M AAV in Year 1
So a grand total of $23.5 million to pay those three guys this coming year. Now follow me. We'll take it a step further...
Just for fun. We're having fun, right? Let's toss in a Tee Higgins restructure
Restructuring Tee Higgins' deal this year would open up $13.2 million in 2026 cap space for the Bengals. What could that money buy?
- Lions DT D.J. Reader: $4.5M AAV...$4.5M in Year 1
- Ravens EDGE Dre'Mont Jones: $10M AAV...$9.5M in Year 1
A grand total of $14 million to spend on solidifying the defensive line. Here's more math, combining the total spending on Chenal, Curl, Onyemata, Reader, and Jones — minus the Burrow/Higgins restructure savings:
$37.5 million - $32.43 million = $5.07 million net cost in 2026
That's it. That's IT! I swear to you this is not made-up. If the Bengals front office or the Blackburn family saw this, they'd scream, "SORCERY!" or "BLASPHEME!"
Two simple, salary-cap savvy restructures to basically cancel out the cost of purchasing five significant free-agent contributors to the defense on the open market.
Oh by the way, how would all this impact the Bengals' 2027 offseason, you ask? You really wanna go there? No really. I don't want to upset you, dear reader. OK. We're going there.
I know this is a BIG ASK for the Bengals to even fathom *ANOTHER* contract restructure. But hey, we're already this far down the road, why not proceed?
Guess how much cap space would be saved by restructuring Ja'Marr Chase's contract next year? I'll tell you: $18.2 million.
Now before we get into the larger salary cap picture for next offseason, let's bake in the round-number, approximate Year 2 salaries for all the hypothetical free agents I brought to Cincinnati from the last section (Reader and Onyemata were on one-year deals).
- Year 2 FA salaries:
- Leo Chenal ($8M) + Kam Curl ($12.5M) + Dre'Mont Jones ($10M) = $30.5 million
- Minus the $18.2 million cap space from Ja'Marr Chase's restructure
- = $12.3 million net cost for 2027
Guess how much 2027 cap space the Bengals WOULD STILL HAVE after all this?
$149 million.
You might be saying, "Well what about the current players Cincinnati needs to retain in free agency in 2027?"
We'll list all of them out right now. The top priority is cornerback DJ Turner. Retaining Dax Hill as a boundary CB2 would be cool, too. Chase Brown is a proven feature back. Ideally you keep him. Here are the only others I'll hear an argument for retaining:
- LT Orlando Brown Jr.
- S Jordan Battle
- DE Myles Murphy
- NB Jalen Davis
Let's go crazy. Say Turner is worth $22 million in Year 1 of a mega extension. Say the Bengals overpay for all these guys. Dax gets $13 million in 2027. Brown gets the same. OBJ earns $20 million. Battle proves he can start at safety. Give him $6 million. Murphy is a solid DE2...wanna go $15 million in Year 1? And Davis, barely making over $1 million this year...let's give him $3 million on a new deal.
That's a total of $92 million for those players' salaries in 2027. And that's *if* you want to keep a rather average starter in OBJ at a premium position. And *if* Murphy proves his productive second half of the 2025 campaign wasn't a flash in the pan, which it might've been. And that's *if* Battle is, in fact, a legit starting safety. Still remains to be seen.
But anyway, I haven't accounted for right guard Dalton Risner, who the Bengals haven't extended yet for reasons that defy any logic whatsoever. The average of the aforementioned contract projections have him at two years, $12 million. So we'll say $7 million in 2027 just to keep it simple.
$149 million - $99 million = $50 million.
That's right. The Bengals would still have fifty million dollars in 2027 salary cap space to play with in this scenario. and mind you, that's *if* the salary cap doesn't exceed expectations as it's done on an annual basis for the past several years.
...And once you've fit all those in, you can restructure Burrow and/or Higgins *AGAIN* in 2028 to free up even more cap space. Or Chase if you want to.
THIS. THIS. THIS!!!!! Is what going all-in looks like.
Do you feel the anger? The rage? I'm but a lowly pleb of a sportswriter. I cooked this whole thing up in a matter of hours. Duke Tobin, his minions, the Blackburn family, and Mike Brown couldn't conceive of such a vision if given several LIFETIMES of time on task.
The Bengals fans deserve better. Joe Burrow deserves better. It's just never gonna happen.
Now is when I share what the Los Angeles Rams did in the offseason before they beat the Bengals in Super Bowl LVI:
- Executed the Jared Goff-for-Matthew Stafford trade. Between Goff's dead money and Stafford's incoming salary cap hit, that cost the Rams approx. $42.2 million of their total $182.5 million salary cap allotment (23.1% of total cap).
- Restructured the contracts of reigning Defensive Player of the Year Aaron Donald, eventual Triple Crown wide receiver/Super Bowl MVP Cooper Kupp, Jalen Ramsey, and Robert Woods.
- In spite of all those complexities, LA still pulled off a four-year, $64 million contract for prized free agent Leonard Floyd.
- AND, even though the wide receiver position (Kupp, Woods) and defensive line (Donald, Floyd) were strengths of the team, the Rams pulled off an in-season trade for superstar pass rusher Von Miller, and signed WR Odell Beckham Jr., who caught a TD in Super Bowl LVI.
I rest my case on what "all-in" means.