No Excuses: What NFL Salary Cap Means for Bengals' Offseason, Chances of Signing Stars

The NFL's salary cap will soon be set for the 2025 season, and it's going up more than expected. Projections for the salary cap—the mysterious nine-digit number that dictates both the minimum and maximum teams can spend—had been around $272.5 million. Until now.

ESPN's Dan Graziano reported that due to a 2024 smoothing adjustment the NFLPA will partially recover in 2025, the cap will land somewhere between $277.5-$281.5 million. That number should be finalized in the next week. For the Bengals, that will make their adjusted cap number somewhere between $283.4-$287.4 million, leaving them with $51-$55 million in cap space.

What does all that mean for Cincinnati? Largely, the same thing it means for the rest of the NFL. New contracts get more expensive, while existing contracts become easier to fit into the cap and relatively cheaper due to increased league revenue. It may also give teams nominally more flexibility than expected. Since contracts are largely indexed to the unadjusted salary cap, they'll have a clearer idea of what Ja'Marr Chase's contract will look like.

I covered this over a month ago, and most of those numbers are still correct. Now we can project that Chase's contract, if it were to equal Justin Jefferson's when measured by annual average value as a percentage of the cap when signed, would land in the $38-38.5 million range, at least $3 million more than Jefferson. That's the financial cost they'll bear for being unable to complete the extension last summer.

Using similar math, we could project that an extension for Trey Hendrickson could land in the $27-$30 million range, and Tee Higgins in the $27.5-$31 million range. There's likely a little wiggle room on either side. These values are based on Hendrickson's comparison to high-end edge rushers who didn't reset the market and Higgins with comparable receivers.

If we err on the high side overall, the Bengals should still have a ton of cap space to work with this offseason.

I modeled a $40 million deal for Chase with $30 million deals for Hendrickson and Higgins with reasonable contract structures. If the Bengals move on from Sheldon Rankins, Alex Cappa, Sam Hubbard, Germaine Pratt, and Zack Moss, those contracts could leave them with more than $80 million in cap space, depending on structure. When you factor in the cost for the draft class and practice squad, that number is more accurately represented around $73 million. That's a whole lot of money to sign free agents after signing Chase, Hendrickson and Higgins to long-term contracts!

Here's what the Bengals' cap situation could look like if they head into free agency with high-end projections for their stars. No void years.
- $40M APY 4-year extension for Ja'Marr Chase
- $30M APY 2-year extension for Hendrickson
- $30M APY 3-year contract for Tee Higgins… pic.twitter.com/CePhbWgvnU
— Jake Liscow (@JakeLiscow) February 19, 2025

So what's stopping the Bengals from getting these deals done, re-signing Mike Gesicki on top of them, and making a major splash in free agency? The usual suspects.

As always, they'll need to find players who will agree to their structure that doesn't guarantee money after the first year, assuming their MO doesn't change. And given the natural bidding wars in free agency and the Bengals' reluctance to overpay, their options may be limited. They'll need to find success like they did with Hendrickson, Chidobe Awuzie, Mike Hilton, and some others.

Then there's the cash question. Given their cash spending habits over the past five years, the Bengals will likely spend around $300 million in 2025. Remember, cash spending is distinct from cap hits, which I've covered in the past.

These deals could cost the Bengals an additional $65-70 million in 2025. With expected cap cuts, based on my expectations and their history, that would still leave around $70 million in cash to spend on other contracts. In fact, based on expectations for cash spend, they may front-load the cap hits to some degree to maintain future flexibility. That may even be prudent, considering the biggest cap hits will come later.

There will be questions about guaranteed money, their willingness to invest heavily in just four players, and how they plan to reinforce the defense and offensive line, but Wednesday's news underscores that there are no obvious excuses for the Bengals.

With Joe Burrow in his prime and a clear championship window, the Bengals have a golden opportunity—and the money to capitalize on it.

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