Ja'Marr Chase's Record-Breaking Deal on the Horizon? | GSMC Chip Shot Football Podcast

we are back here on the gsmc Chip Shot football podcast not moving too far off of the contract talks with the two biggest remaining players that still need to figure out what they're going to do with their contracts and more so I should say what each of their teams is going to do with these players and their contracts because we just finished talking about Trent Williams and is he going to hold out into the regular season and the Bengals and their star wide receiver Jamar Chase are facing the same sort of standoff right now as to whether or not Jamar is going to get a contract extension or not this year because it looked like it was going to be a great sort of development last week almost exactly a week from from today it was last Sunday when uh Jamar Chase began practicing it was a big announcement right that he was back participating not just showing up there in Street close he was showing up practicing helmet on and everything it looked like this was coming to a resolution right sooner rather than later last week but then you know Zack Taylor ironically on how it all played out he confirmed that Jamar Chase was going to practice all last week and that he you know again felt confident that this was all going to be worked out in the end before the regular season but of course as soon as you say something the complete opposite happens Jamar Chase again went back to not practicing the rest of the week once Zack Taylor said that now I'm not sure right personally if he meant to do that that way that if he heard Zack Taylor say that and and then he just decided to not practice or if this was all premeditated regardless it was pretty funny pretty ironic how it all played out and Zach Taylor even mentioned afterwards that he uh he probably spoke too soon on that situation and now after the actions of last week where we thought this was heading towards a amicable you know solution with both sides now we're back to the same old asking the same old question will Jamar Chase play or will he hold out into the regular season and now uh he's obviously looking for a massive deal and he has earned one I would say I don't think a lot of people would dispute that because of how just seamless the transition has been for Jamar right as soon as he gets into the NFL he has those struggles in the preseason dropping all the balls and then once the regular season starts it's like you had a whole new player the same guy you got from LSU forgot about the preseason completely and just right away considered one of the best wide receivers in the the NFL but what's so unusual about this deal is that obviously he isn't in the last year of his deal he's not in the fifth year option like cidi lamb Brandon auk where he still has the final year of his contract his rookie contract which is this year and then he has that fifth year option next year technically so the Bengals don't really have to extend them right now there's no deadline fearing any free agency or anything like that but um the leverage that Jamar Chase does hold is that unlike any other team I would probably say other than probably the Vikings um Jamar Chase is just as important to that team as their quarterback is and that's saying a lot because Joe burrow is obviously their quarterback this team doesn't move anywhere without Joe but almost similarly I don't think it moves any further that much further than it does without Jamar chase at all for however many um games he decides to miss so the longer you know this has been played out once I saw Jamar come back to practice on Sunday I thought that was pretty much it once he went back to holding in technically just showing up and not practicing I started to really consider the fact that Jamar is pretty serious about not playing in the regular season because if you're not going to hold out why would you just hold back in throughout the practices right there's no reason to kind of tease players or tease fans out there that you're back on Sunday and then you're back to holding in right there's no reason to do that unless you're really considering holding out of the regular season without that contract extension so that's the sort of back and forth that we're facing right now and now what sort of contract that Jamar is looking for you know it's going to be high up there you know he's shooting for a CD Justin Jefferson type of deal and that's exactly what uh Ian Rapaport reported over the weekend on what he is hearing on what kind of deal Jamar Chase is um looking for he said my understanding is that the two sides are still discussing a long-term extension that if he got it would make him either tied for the highest paid wide receiver with Jamar Chase or beating Justin Jefferson by one cent which I believe is the goal by Jamar Chase and it makes sense right he's definitely earned a contract like that but again for him to get a big deal like that so early on is very very rare and unusual because you look at now the facts around this whole situation with Jamar and being still two years left on his contract in this situation you look at everything that is that is and could happen in this situation right because if you extend Jamar Chase right now it would allow Cincinnati to spread his cap hit over um two additional years right because he has those two years left on his rookie deal if he gets a three-year deal that can extend it to a 5-year deal technically right extend that cap hit if it's a four-year deal it's six years technically they could extend it right and so on and so on so that is a benefit to extend that cap hit a little bit longer if they decide to do that um but with this being so unprecedented you have players with two years left rarely sit out over a new deal you know you don't really get a case where you still have a year left on your rookie deal then this still the fifth year option very rare do you see a player hold out in this situation and especially for non- quarterbacks you can maybe understand it for a quarterback but for anybody else it's ex extremely rare and it's even more um unlikely that they end up getting that deal because again the team doesn't feel like they need to do anything right now and then you sort of are just in a moment where all right if jamar's not going to move if he's really serious about holding out and the team the Cincinnati Bengals don't again feel an intensity or an urge to extend them because they simply don't have to then it just we're just in that same spot again right just waiting to see like Trent Williams and the 49ers who makes the first move who throws the first punch and who sort of caves to the others um caves to the others you know just standstill right now who caves to the others needs right now in terms of figuring out what they want at this point in time but then you might look at other receivers in this situation that um have also gotten extensions with two years left right you might point to Jaylen Wadd Devonte Smith who also had two years left on their deals but they got their extensions this year similarly to uh Jamar Chase uh they were also in Jamar Chase's draft class so they've got their contract extensions what makes it different with Jamar Chase right he's better he's um he's proven to have better stats more I would say value to his team compared to Jaylen alongside Tyreek and also Devonte Smith alongside AJ Brown Jamar is that guy for the Bengals so they got their extensions why can't Jamar Chase get his at this point the exact same time that those guys got their extensions but the difference with that is is that Jaylen and Devonte weren't really threatening on holding out at any point this off season it almost came to me at least as a surprise that you know they were going to get those extensions they were only three-year deals right because they had those two additional years added on so they're really under contract for the next 5 years but it was more of a amicable situation with those two guys right because as much as I heard about that their extension period was coming up I never really thought that it was going to happen you know pretty soon Devon really surprised me but again another receiver that has earned an extension he's not making the kind of money that Justin Jefferson or Jamar or cidi lamb um are making on their deals but he got his extension and it just you know became a matter of he said it himself he was just going to wait for all of this to play out and if it happens it happens and it all came to fruition in a very friendly sort of way same thing with Jaylen all you heard about Jaylen and the extension talks with the dolphins was was that it was going to happen they were going to exercise that fifth year option and soon after that he he got his extension another three-year deal and he's making around $28 million based on those three years so now with Jamar it hasn't gone as smoothly just because he is holding out he isn't um participating in practice and unlike those two guys he is threatening of not playing in the regular season where those other receivers were just not doing that at this point in time so it makes it a little bit tougher because you are backing the team you know that draft that drafted you that you are on into a corner where you know they feel like this is very unnecessary I'm assuming and their owner even Mike Brown said that discusting extensions right now isn't the most optimal time to do so he'd rather wait for the off season and that probably was going to be their plan wait for Jamar to play this year and then next off season in the spring similarly to April and May when uh Devonte Smith and Jaylen w got their deals then to work out some at that time with uh Jamar Chase but right now it seems like Jamar is very adamant about getting it done right now and uh according also ESPN Germany Fowler continued on and said that the Bengals have started to intensify their efforts to get this extension done with Jamar Chase but nothing is imminent and nothing um right now is close to really happening the the Bengals remained hopeful that something can happen but um right now the Bengals have tried to approach this with a bit more urgency as we get closer to the start of the regular season and technically um with this odd situation with Jamar and the Bengals Jamar doesn't technically have the traditional leverage that you see with some of these players right you look at Dak he has a no trade clause No Tag clause and other receivers you know cidi Brandon like I mentioned they're on their last year so Jamar doesn't have any of that left but it's so unique in the way that Jamar is very much so very dependent or very um crucial to the success of the Bengals so if you don't feel like there's any urgency there fine Jamar is just going to probably sit out and then it becomes a real will of just standing your ground and determining if you really want him back which obviously the Bengals do obviously the Bengals want him to play but um going back to last week with Chad oo's comments mentioning that sort of hinting to the fact that Jamar could also hold out and at the time it seemed pretty light like it wasn't really to be taken seriously but now the closer we are to the regular season it could become a lot more um a lot more troubling for the Bengals to figure out this situation and fortunately for them though they have one of the easier schedules at least in their division they have the easiest schedule in the AFC North and their first game is against the New England Patriots which no disrespect to the Patriots jamar's not going to be the Difference Maker probably in that game considering where the Patriots are right now but you could go by with one week but then the next week if this starts to become a habit much like Trent Williams then we become then we start getting into this area where um the Bengals might just have to cough up the extension right now which could serve them a little bit better you know getting the contract out now you don't know who or what kind of money you could be facing next off season if other receivers are getting extensions so it could become cheaper if you do it now but again it just came out of nowhere where Jamar just not practicing not showing up and uh I think it's just taking the Bengals by surprise at this point so kind of regaining their senses trying to get this done as best as they can with the timeline now on uh Sunday at 1:00 where when they play the Patriots we're going to see how this all develops over the next few days by Thursday or Wednesday like I said with Trent if nothing's done by then I don't see why they would throw them out there anyway again playing the Patriots is one thing but um just no practice at all it makes no sense for them to just play him and it does provide an opportunity for other receivers but again you need Jamar chase out there especially because you could be losing T Higgins next year so um those are your only real two guarantees T Higgins and Joe burrow right now in terms of proven Playmakers we'll see how they resolve this entire thing with Jamar Chase going forward but the next couple topics are not really contract related just more so questions that I thought I'd bring up on some of these players one of them being Josh Jacobs obviously signing with the Patriots he reportedly had interest from the Chiefs and also the New York Giants over the offseason so we're going to talk about whether or not signing with the Green Bay Packers made the bigger impact over signing with the Chiefs or poten entally the Giants then moving on with another topic we have the Eagles and why they decided to keep James Bradberry it felt like a very polarizing topic so we're going to get into that what their general manager howy Roseman said and whether or not it was a good decision overall to keep him before we finish off today's episode with some more predictions on the final standings in each division we have the very anticipated AFC North on today's show so we're going to get to all of that when return after this short break look