The “hold-in” for Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase continues to captivate the NFL.
Case in point, Adam Schefter just went on ESPN and called the situation “mysterious” while comparing it to other situations.
“This is the one to me that remains the most mysterious. Because unlike Brandon Aiyuk and CeeDee Lamb, Ja’Marr Chase has two years left on his contract, not one,” Schefter said. “We’ve already heard Bengals president Mike Brown come out and say he would prefer to wait to do this deal. Now I think Cincinnati will still push to get this deal done. But from my understanding there hasn’t been a whole lot of progress.”
In the end, it might not turn out all that mysterious. Chase hasn’t been practicing yet but has been in attendance at all training camp practices (minus one exception) and also traveled with the team to Chicago for the second preseason game.
While Brown has said next year might be ideal for an extension, he also made it clear that it would happen, even saying, to paraphrase, that the team would “bend over backwards” to see it done. For Chase, it’s a matter of doing it now to lock in the guarantees, years and earlier chance at a future extension down the road, or likely even bigger cash one year from now.
And with Justin Jefferson already resetting the market, there’s a very real chance the Bengals and Chase are simply playing the waiting game to see what numbers Lamb and Aiyuk get. Then, they can put Chase over the top, where they both feel he deserves to be.
It’s not all that shocking to see Chase doesn’t want to risk injury while this unfolds. Barring something outright stunning, there’s no reason to think he won’t at least get in gear with Joe Burrow ahead of Week 1.
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