Kyler Murray’s new deal impacts Cleveland Browns, AFC North
Joe Burrow is the beneficiary of AFC North overspending
Joe Burrow is the youngest of the star quarterbacks in the AFC North (ignoring for the moment any incipient noise from the Steel City). He will be eligible to extend his deal after this season, and unless he hires Lamar Jackson to be his agent, he will not set foot on a football field again until his deal is extended.
However, his big money year kicks in at year six, 2026. Prior to that, he will be on his rookie contract plus a fifth-year option. Hence, in 2024 and 2025, his team will have about $40 million in extra cap space to spend.
"“I can tell you that we couldn’t be happier with Joe Burrow. He’s everything you would wish for, especially for a quarterback in Cincinnati. Our whole focus is going to be on keeping him here.” — Bengals owner Mike Brown, quoted by Ben Baby, ESPN July 25, 2022"
Burrow took the Bengals to the Super Bowl despite having a radioactive disaster area in the offensive line. Suddenly, however, free agents are thrilled to sign with Cincy after years of avoiding the team like the plague.
Everyone wants to play on the same team as Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase. The Bengals can effectively obtain a winner’s discount for signing them and they have been able to add legitimate talent this season. After they tried to get him killed in 2020 with a horrible ACL injury caused by ineffective blocking and trying again in 2021 by letting him get sacked a league-leading 51 times, they have added three major free agent offensive linemen. Burrow will likely set all kinds of team records in 2022.
Writers (not just this one) are throwing all sorts of enormous numbers around for an extension that will begin in 2025 and continue through 2029. Once again, this is projected to occur during a time of revenue growth in the NFL (hence the cap allowance), aided and abetted by an inflationary period in the US economy.
Hence, Burrow’s numbers could be even higher than the level established by Watson and Murray, especially if he leads Cincinnati to the playoffs again. The Bengals dare not say no to him, because the fan base would disassemble Paul Brown Stadium brick by brick and throw it into the Ohio River if they let Burrow go.
But in 2022, Burrow’s cap number is a paltry $9.9 million, and it rises only a little in 2023, to $11.5 million in 2023, according to Spotrac.com. They’re in great shape, cap-wise, and even though they didn’t have a great draft they have Burrow, Chase, Mixon, and Co. and they are getting free agents to sign with them.
The Bengals probably don’t have the greatest football organization in the world. But they are going to have more cap space than the Browns or the Ravens through 2025. There’s absolutely no reason why they will not contend if Burrow is healthy.
They’re not going anywhere for the next few years. We are talking like $40 million dollars to be spent on upgrading the roster. In the NFL, it matters how good the 11th-best player on the field is. The Bengals should be able to plug necessary holes for the next three years.
Assuming 10 percent annual growth, the 2025 cap might be around $278 million versus the $230 million projected for 2023, and Burrow’s cap number could be correspondingly large compared to Watson’s “outrageous” take-home pay.
Again, this author doesn’t believe that teams are likely to win the Super Bowl by spending this kind of money, but the teams are likely to follow suit and pay what other teams are paying. The Super Bowl may be a bit of a longshot, but someone has to win the division, but they will at least have a puncher’s chance to pull off the upset.
If Cleveland, Baltimore, and Cincinnati are all overpaying, the playing field has to have a tendency to level out.
But what about the Steelers? If the Steelers are the only team not saddled with a huge bill to pay at the quarterback position, are they going to have an advantage over the other teams in the division?