Free Agency Talk & Rumors 2025

Leon Sandcastle

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Bengals finally got one of their guys signed. All that over $500k in additional money up front...
Pretty sure there was more to it than that. I heard he was trying to get it guaranteed no matter what. Like even if he fucks up and goes to prison or something like that. At least that makes more sense than thinking it was over 500k
 

Canth

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Pretty sure there was more to it than that. I heard he was trying to get it guaranteed no matter what. Like even if he fucks up and goes to prison or something like that. At least that makes more sense than thinking it was over 500k

Based on the various things I saw, other teams had similar language but basically did what the Bengals just did in having a slightly different structure for the actual payment of money. The Bengals wanted to add the language without giving any of those same concessions. They finally settled of paying $500k more up front. I don't think they even changed the overall contract value, just the structure of paying more of the signing bonus up front.

As an aside, I also find that interesting how that doesn't get talked about much. They have 'signing bonuses', but the structure sometimes means that they don't actually get all the money right away presumably due to cash flow issues with the team.
 

DefNextYear

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$28.5 million a year is underpaid? Still think RB is the most underpaid group.
Yup, I'm not saying they are the most underpaid group, but a premier LT is a position anyone would love to have and he's paid less than Brandon Aiyuk... among plenty others. If I'm drafting a team from scratch, I'm taking Slater over guys like Aiyuk or Metcalf without batting an eye. For the record, Metcalf makes almost 16% more (AAV). Also, the guys he has to block make WAY more. Myles and Watt make more than 40% more (AAV), cause they're each over 40 mil/year. It makes no sense to me that a 26 year old top 3-5 LT is making that much less than older edges he's paid to stop. Further, if you look at the other OTs, Wirfs and Sewell, they make 28.125 and 28, respectively. But they signed in 2024. If you simply adjust them for the salary cap increase, each of those contracts were worth over 30.5 mil/year in cap adjusted dollars. That means Slater should've gotten at least 30.5 mil/year. By comparison, Dickerson signed for 21 million and Trey Smith got 23.5 (about 12% increase). Slater got a hair over 1% increase.
 

bamainatlanta

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DefNextYear

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remydat

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Heard the player in question re Wilkin's kiss is Brock Bowers. Take with grain of salt.
 

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