Harrison Is Exactly Right About Bengals Organization And Front Office
Sam Greene via Imagn Images
A disappointing and potentially season-altering loss against the Baltimore Ravens has brought many difficult conversations back to the forefront in Cincinnati. The Tee Higgins situation and Zac Taylor’s hot seat are both spinning, but storyline that has reared it’s head the hardest after Thursday night is the Ja’Marr chase contact conversation.
After Chase became the only wide receiver in NFL history to record two 250 yards receiving games in his career, many revisited his hold out, the affect it had on the early part of the season, and whether or not the team chose the right path with the young superstar.
There is a reasonable financial argument to be made that whatever extra money Chase will earn by having a dynamic year in 2024 will be offset by the extreme affordability of his fourth year contract. This is the same reason that the Cowboys didn’t extend Micah Parsons this off-season and the Vikings did the same with Justin Jefferson last off-season. Yes, Jefferson ultimately cost them a bigger contract, but it is absolutely offset by the mere $4 million he made in the fourth year of his deal.
The problem with this line of thinking is it is only as successful as the strength of the organization. The Minnesota Vikings are consistently regarded as one of the most player friendly organizations in the league. Their facilities, coaching staff, and history of rewarding players gives them the ability to play the long game with a player like Jefferson. The Bengals on the other hand, have none of these things.
On Pro Football Talk Live, Rodney Harrison pushed back on Mike Florio, who was making the above contract argument, with a simple and concise indictment of the Bengals history, process, and how the Chase situation reflects.
“Do you want to tick off a guy? Do you want to tick off your locker room? Do you want to turn potential free agents out there away? Because if I’m a free agent I’m looking at the way you, the Bengals, have done Jamar Chase[and] I’m
like there’s no way. They won’t even take care of one of the top two receivers in all of football?! You think I’m gonna go there?And that’s what happens…guys have conversations. Guys call up Jamar, ‘hey man how’s the Bengals situation?’ ‘Hey man I’m not tripping on these dudes. They don’t want to pay me.’And that’s what happens man.
And to me if you’re the Bengals and you’ve had a bad reputation for so many years, why don’t you break that and show that hey we got a new quarterback we got a new feeling around here, let’s do something different. Let’s change from what we used to do. Let’s take care of our guys. Let’s send a message to the league that hey if you come to the Bengals and you’re the right guy we’re going to take care of you. We take take care of our own. That’s the message that you send when you sign a guy like that. That it’s not always necessarily about how much money can you save on the salary cap, it’s more important about taking care of that locker room and sending a message to that locker room.”
It’s the sad reality that Bengals fans live in every year. The louder the noise gets about the subject, the better the chance that things change, but Who Dey Nation won’t be holding their breath.
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