The quarterback dominoes are starting to fall this offseason which has Cincinnati Bengals fans wondering when Joe Burrow will receive a contract extension.
New York Giants quarterback Daniel Jones received an extension on Tuesday worth $160 million over four years ($82 million guaranteed).
Additionally, the Baltimore Ravens placed the franchise tag on quarterback Lamar Jackson on Tuesday as they have been unable to work out an extension so far.
Burrow is eligible for an extension this offseason for the first time in his career.
And the expectation is that Cincinnati will give him a lucrative extension before the start of the 2023 season — there’s almost zero chance they don’t.
The only question is when will the extension happen.
Thanks to a tidbit from The Athletic’s Paul Dehner Jr, we have a good idea of when that extension might happen.
It’s been discussed plenty that one issue for the Bengals and these looming extensions (Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins) is that the franchise has to put any guaranteed money in an escrow account to ensure that it can be paid over the life of the contract.
That can be a problem for teams that aren’t as cash-rich as other franchises. This is presumably the reason that Cincinnati sold the naming rights to their stadium to Paycor last offseason — to generate some extra cash for the guaranteed portion of contracts.
According to Dehner, the deadline to have that money in escrow is March 31, 2023 (if the extension is signed before March 31).
If the Bengals and Burrow reach an agreement after March 31, then they have until March 31, 2024 to put that money into escrow.
The Bengals will obviously be doing business when free agency starts next week and some of the players they sign will have guaranteed money in their contracts.
Those deals obviously won’t include as much guaranteed money as what Burrow gets, but it will still have to go into an escrow account (as long as it’s more than $15 million, anything under that isn’t subject to this rule).
Waiting until after March 31 buys the Bengals some time when it comes to putting Burrow’s guaranteed money in escrow. And since they’re not really up against the clock, there’s no real rush to get this done before April.
The Bengals are going to get this deal done. And it’s almost certainly going to happen this offseason.
It just probably won’t be happening until the calendar flips to April.
