The Bengals Have A HUGE Contract Decision Coming...
John Sheeran breaks down what the Turner news means for Cincinnati, why a franchise tag could eventually be in play and what the Bengals are going to do with the significant amount of salary-cap space they deliberately created this offseason.
Video Transcript
A new report has me seriously confused as to how the Bengals plan to spend their last week before the season begins.
I'm John Scheer of A to Z Sports Cincinnati.
This is A to Z Sports Cincinnati, covering your Cincinnati Bengals leading up to week one.
There has been no shortage of praise as to how the Bengals have navigated the last six months of the calendar year.
It's been one of the more productive off-seasons I can remember this team having.
It, it has Joe Burrow and Ja'Marr Chase feeling very confident that this team can win a Super Bowl this year.
They were very successful in free agency.
They made a historic trade for Dexter Lawrence.
They, in my opinion, knocked the draft out of the park.
They did so many good things of retooling this roster.
But we all knew that wasn't all that they wanted to accomplish.
There were still some players on the team from last year that they wanted to take care of long term.
And one guy in particular, cornerback D.J.
Turner, deserves this the most.
And for the last two months, ever since Turner's agent went to Instagram and, like, foreshadowed potentially a major contract extension for his client, we have been wondering, "When is the D.J.
Turner contract extension going to drop?"
Because now we are in the final week of the off-season, and the Bengals always use the beginning of the regular season as a hard deadline for negotiating major contract extensions.
And we finally seem to have some sort of an update about how contract talks are going, and it's not particularly a great one.
D.J.
Turner's actually the first Bengals player to ever wear the number zero jersey, and in my opinion, it'd be really cool to see him wear that jersey for more than just this year.
But if you wanna get your own number zero jersey for the Bengals, be sure to enter our A to Z Sports Cincinnati Bengals jersey giveaway, where one lucky fan is going to win their very own custom Bengals jersey.
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All you have to do is follow the steps here on the screen, comment down below your Bengals season record prediction for the 2026 season, and then click the link in the description to add A to Z Sports as your preferred Google source.
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Now, as for Turner himself, he and his representation have been looking to be extended by the Bengals for a long-term contract this off-season, and according to ESPN's Jeremy Fowler, who released this report on Wednesday, it doesn't seem like both sides are particularly close, saying, quote, "This deal has virtually no chance to get done before week one, barring a massive and unexpected uptick.
It isn't close, and Turner is poised to play out his rookie deal.
If Cincinnati follows its own blueprint, it will franchise tag Turner as it did with another star defensive back, Jessie Bates III, in 2022.
Bates had to play on the tag before reaching a four-year deal with the Atlanta Falcons for agency."
We all know this.
"Turner will be in line for a large payday in free agency if he reaches it, but the franchise tag is a real possibility here."
It's disappointing, but yet not tremendously surprising to hear this.
Again, Turner seemed like the most logical player for the Bengals to get an extension done with this off-season as their number one quarterback, as someone entering their prime at just 25, 26 years old.
He plays a position that historically they have valued and they have paid both on the open market and with their own players.
It just may come down to whether or not the Bengals feel like Turner is worth the number that he's asking, whether that's the guaranteed number, whether that's the average annual value.
Whatever the case may be, it seems like both sides are not close to an agreement.
Jeremy Fowler of ESPN is pretty plugged in with the organization, so I do trust his reporting here.
And it's not surprising because we have seen this over and over again in recent years.
Orlando Brown Jr. Was the exception because he personally went to Mike Brown, wrote a letter saying that he wants to be extended, and he got a contract that was the same average annual value that they paid him three years ago when the salary cap was significantly smaller.
D.J.
Turner is not going to be asking for anything like that.
He's going to be asking for either a market resetting deal or something very close to it.
And virtually every major player that the Bengals have extended in recent years, it has taken a long time, and there's been harsh negotiations attached to them.
And what really twists the knife here is Fowler mentioning, you know, what happened with Jessie Bates and how similar these two comparisons really are.
Because if you remember back in 2020, which was Bates' third year, he had his breakout season.
He was arguably the best safety in the NFL at the time, but he was surrounded by a piss-poor defense.
The team was terrible.
He didn't receive any accolades for what he did.
He was eligible for a contract extension in the next off-season, and both sides weren't even close.
And then, of course, Bates gets franchise tagged, he leaves next off-season, and the Bengals have regretted that decision ever since.
Only just now have they recovered in the safety room.
It's impossible not to see the similarities here with Turner, who was also coming off of his third year, which was his best year, surrounded by a bad defense, didn't receive a Pro Bowl nod despite very much earning one.
He now doesn't have that accolade to help him out in negotiations.
Maybe the Bengals don't see him quite at the level of player that he himself is and that we all recognize him to be.
Now, this could be something that does spark to get negotiations back up and running to a more better place, and maybe something does get done by the end of next week.
But as of right now, I'm not expecting that.
At this point, I am expecting Turner to play out his rookie deal, and if he does well enough, and if he's the player that we expect him to be based off of what he did last year and the growth that he accomplished last year, he's probably going to get the franchise tag, which is around $23 million, if I remember correctly.
That part I can at least wrap my head around if I'm not disappointed about it.
What confuses me is what the Bengals are actually going to do next week.
Back in the spring, the Bengals made the historic decision, historic for themselves, to restructure the contract of Joe Burrow, and that decision freed up $10 million in salary cap space for this year.
It sacrificed about $2.6 million in salary cap space for the next, you know, three or four years, whatnot, but it saved cap space for this year.
And now the Bengals have about $18.5 million in salary cap space for them to use this season.
Knowing the Bengals, they absolutely will not use all $18.5 million, but in recent years they have rolled over anywhere between five to nine million dollars in salary cap space for the next year, which means in recent years, the Bengals have gotten pretty damn close to the salary cap ceiling, anywhere between five to nine million dollars away from it.
Right now, they are $18.5 million away from it.
Some of this will be used for practice squad elevations and, you know, practice payments and all these other incentives that they had to pay out that's not counted against the salary cap right now.
Some of it will be used, but nowhere near 18 million of it will be used.
Part of the reason why the Burrow restructure made sense was to give them room to get at least one significant extension done this off-season.
And if it's not gonna be Turner, I seriously question who that extension is going to belong to.
We've talked about the decision for the Bengals to not exercise the fifth-year option of Miles Murphy's contract, which means he's also scheduled to be a free agent next year, unless the Bengals come to an agreement with an extension.
But if they aren't willing to extend DJ Turner, who in my opinion is a more proven player and a proven starter in this defense compared to Murphy, I don't know if they're gonna be able to reach an agreement with Murphy, who would've been locked in next year for about $14.5 million in guaranteed salary.
And if the Bengals weren't willing to pay him that, I don't think they're going to be willing to pay him an extension that he is gonna be willing to accept, rather than just play out this contract year and get more on the open market next year.
Dax Hill is also up for a new deal.
He was playing on his fifth-year option, as he was a first-round pick from 2022, but there have been no signs of the Bengals getting anywhere close to an extension with Dax Hill, and this seems destined to play out of just him playing out his contract and then hitting free agency next year.
Having been moved around in the secondary for basically all of his time in Cincinnati, it seems like Dax Hill can utilize this opportunity to play well as a starter for one more year and then get a fresh start next year on a brand-new deal.
The drafting of Dakario Davis made it seem like the Bengals were willing to move on from at least one of their starting cornerbacks, and Hill, based off of just how everything has gone with him, and there should be prioritization of Turner, it made it seem like Hill was going to be the odd man out.
Maybe that's not the case anymore, but I don't know if Hill is getting any indication that he is wanted here long term.
And then there's running back Chase Brown, who is probably going to be the cheapest out of all these options that I've discussed, but there is always the conversation about is it wise to pay a running back a long-term contract?
I could see the Bengals justifying having the space in order to pay one of these guys and using that justification to pay Chase Brown like a three-year deal worth anywhere between 11 or $13 million based off of what that market for, you know, mid-tier running backs have become this off-season.
And maybe that would make sense, and maybe that would alleviate some concerns about what are they going to do with this money, but if that is the decision that they land on, then they are accepting that three key starters for the defense are playing out their contract years, and they will all be scheduled to enter free agency next year.
The offense is definitely in a better place to just, you know, replace a running back next year, and I don't know if the same can be said with the defense with two cornerbacks and one of their starting defensive ends.
So I'm left here a bit perplexed.
If the Bengals aren't going to extend DJ Turner, which of these guys is going to get an extension?
Are any of them gonna get an extension?
Or are the Bengals going to enter, seriously enter the regular season with nearly $20 million in salary cap space?
I have to remind people, that is not the norm.
The Bengals may not be the, the team to always spend up to the cap, but typically, they are much closer to 10 or 8 million in salary cap space when week one rolls around rather than 20.
There is space to make a significant financial move here, and I just don't know what that move is going to be, because Turner seemed like the clear and obvious choice to extend.
And if it's not him, it's gotta be one of these three, right?
It has to be, because if not, what was the point of restructuring Burrow's deal in the first place?
What was the point of sacrificing that future cap space in order to clear space now?
What are you going to use that extra 10 million in space on?
I think it would go directly against Joe Burrow's wishes of putting all their chips into the middle of the table this year to go all in for this season.
Going all in does not mean leaving 18 million in space up for grabs.
I think the Bengals have to get a deal done with any of the four players that I talked about today.
I just have no idea which one it's gonna be.
But that's just my take on it.
Who do you think the Bengals should offer a contract extension and get one signed before the regular season begins?
Let me know down in the comments below.
