03/14/2026
The Hard Currency of the Bengals: Will They Do “Whatever it Takes” to Win?
At the end of the season, Duke Tobin told the world, the Bengals front office is willing to do “whatever it takes” to bring a Super Bowl to Cincinnati. But is that true? Are they willing to change if that is what it takes?
In the high-stakes, "all-in" era of the National Football League, the salary cap is often described as a myth. Modern franchises like the Philadelphia Eagles and New Orleans Saints treat the annual limit as a fluid suggestion, using contract structures and restructures to manipulate the amount of cap space they have available at any given time. But in the Queen City, the Cincinnati Bengals operate on a different economic plane. While the rest of the league plays with credit and debt, the Bengals deal in hard currency.
An analysis of NFL dead cap management from 2000 to 2024 reveals that the Bengals are not merely a disciplined team—they are a fiscal outlier. The Bengals have a dead money dynasty, if nothing else. To understand the Bengals’ methodology, we looked at the aggregate efficiency of NFL teams in avoiding dead cap space. Dead cap space is the residual charges that remain on the books after a player is released or traded. Since the turn of the millennium, looking at over two decades of data, a clear hierarchy of fiscal discipline has emerged around who avoids dead cap space the best.
The Top 5 teams at keeping their ledgers clean are:
1. Cincinnati Bengals
2. Indianapolis Colts
3. Kansas City Chiefs
4. Baltimore Ravens
5. Pittsburgh Steelers
You could say, well there’s some pretty good franchises in that group, but, the scale of the Bengals' lead is staggering. Unironically, the Tobin family is most famous for their work with two NFL teams: the Cincinnati Bengals, and you guessed it, the Indianapolis Colts. To say there’s a pattern, is an understatement.
In 2024, as the league-wide salary cap hit $255.4 million, the Bengals carried a minuscule $1,775,689 in dead money. For comparison, the median league figure hovered near $15 million, while aggressive spenders like the Green Bay Packers surpassed $46 million.
One of the most persistent criticisms of the Bengals is that they’re "cheap." However, the data suggests a more nuanced reality: a "spending to the cap" mirage. That’s right, the Bengals have become masters at making it look like they’re spending at and above the cap limit, in order to avoid spending money. Whereas other franchises are attempting to spend as much money as possible without it showing up on the count against their cap limit.
In many years, including 2018, 2021, and 2024, the Bengals actually spent over 100% of the league’s salary cap in "cap dollars". But their strategy to do this is much different than the rest of the NFL.
They achieve this not through being aggressive, but through the strategic use of roster bonuses over signing bonuses. In a standard NFL contract, a signing bonus is prorated over the life or term of the contract, creating a "tail" of dead money if the player is cut early. A roster bonus, on the other hand, counts entirely against the current year’s cap.
By favoring roster bonuses over signing bonuses, the Bengals front office achieves three objectives: immediate cap recognition, an "out" clause, and they avoid debt.
By "burning" the full cost of the player in the year they actually play, the Bengals ensure a completely clean slate for the following season, whereas other teams maybe still paying for players long gone.
The motivations behind this rigid structure are linked to the Brown family’s unique position among NFL owners. Unlike peers who made billions in oil, tech, or real estate, the Bengals are the family’s primary source of wealth and income.
By limiting full guarantees to the first year and using roster bonuses that don't hit escrow until they are earned, the family keeps more liquid cash in their own interest-bearing accounts or reinvests it in team operations for as long as possible. Strategically, you could say this is smart football operations, but that would be ignoring the fact that this "pay-as-you-go" model has allowed the family to maximize operating income, which has rebounded to an average of $98 million annually since 2021.
This fiscal discipline has a direct, and often painful, impact on the roster. The "Bengals-style" contract—high first-year cash but low future guarantees—is frequently rejected by elite players seeking market-standard security. Because this kind of contract, is anything but “market-standard.”
The human cost of this ledger is seen in the departures of franchise cornerstones over the years, as well as an inability to secure free agents in bidding wars against other teams:
In 2011, Jonathan Joseph was a premier young cornerback entering his prime at age 27. The Bengals wanted to keep him, but their offer plateaued in the same range as the 5-year, $48.75 million deal he eventually signed with Houston. The "dispute" wasn't necessarily the total value, but the guaranteed money and the structure.
In 2017, Kevin Zeitler, one of the best young guards in the league, was allowed to sign a record-breaking deal with the Cleveland Browns because the Bengals refused to pay top-of-market for a guard.
And again, in 2023 Safety Jessie Bates III left for the Atlanta Falcons, who were willing to commit $36 million in guaranteed cash over the first two years—a level of commitment the Brown family simply refused to match.
Even in the rookie ranks, where the status quo makes the entire term of a rookie deal guaranteed, the family focused on the insertion an “out” clause attempting to make NFL rookie deals reflect their own internal pay-as-you-go model. The 2025 holdout of first-round pick Shemar Stewart was a move designed to further insulate the families cash flow from risk.
Does this accounting brilliance act as a ceiling on the team's championship potential? While the "Bengals-model" protects the family from the financial risks inherent in "cap debt," it also forces the team to play with a "hard" currency in a league where competitors are increasingly comfortable with leverage. As long as the Brown family continues to prioritize liquidity and the avoidance of dead cap, the Bengals will remain a model of fiscal health. Even if it means watching their most reliable stars walk away for a guaranteed future elsewhere, losing bidding wars for high-value free agents and sitting on the couch watching the playoffs.
What we do know, is that Joe Burrow knows exactly what they’re up to, he understands the Bengals model, and he’s pretty much said, they need to break from this model to compete for a championship. Let’s review his comments on the record.
During an appearance on the Pardon My Take podcast in February 2025, Burrow was asked about the "myth" of the salary cap.
"Definitely some teams make it feel that way [that the cap doesn't exist]... The Eagles are paying everybody, so that seems like the way—whatever they're doing. I think we need to be more creative in how we approach things. You have to identify where you're weak and figure out a way to be strong... I plan to voice some things just like I do every offseason."
Burrow also displayed a firm grasp of the team's specific financial situation in an interview with FS1’s Breakfast Ball (Feb 6, 2025), where he pushed back on the idea that the team couldn't afford to keep its stars:
"We have the cap space to get it done. I want to make it happen. Everybody involved... we all want to stay together. Of course [I'd restructure]. I'm confident that the guys involved will be able to do what it takes to get it done."
And then you have the most concerning quote from Joe Burrow to date:
"If I want to keep doing this, I have to have fun doing it. I’ve been through a lot. If it’s not fun, then what am I doing it for? That’s the mindset I’m trying to bring to the table."
I think the message is clear from Joe Burrow, either modernize the way you do business so we can compete for championships, or I’m retiring. And the response the Bengals front office seems to have towards Joe feels like a father patting a little boy on the head condescendingly saying, “Don’t you worry, we know what we’re doing, and we’re not far from getting you what you want.”
They better be right. One thing is for sure, based on this free agency, the Bengals aren’t changing the way they conduct business, at all. Their contracts are the same, their ability to compete for top free agents is still handicap because of it, (Franklin-Myers would have been in stripes had they not lost the bid for him to the Titans), and up to this point, they’ve been in no discussions with anyone about big time trades. And we know Joe Burrow is watching.
There’s still time, they could break the model still yet this off season. What seems more likely though, is they roll dice thinking they really do know better than Joe. Continue business as usual hoping they can secure enough upgrades to field another lighting-in-the-bottle team capable of a deep run.
And the sad thing?
If they broke the model, and went truly “all-in” I doubt Joe Burrow would leave at all, ever. Because at least then he could goto sleep at night knowing, he in fact does work for a franchise that is willing to do “whatever it takes.”
