Deal for Joe Burrow isn’t imminent: History shows when we may expect a deal

The Cincinnati Bengals and their fans have known for quite some time that this offseason’s crown jewel of a move will be making quarterback Joe Burrow the highest-paid quarterback in the NFL (for now).

He has done everything he was expected to do when the Bengals were lucky enough to bottom out when he had one of the best seasons college football has ever seen. He even had the Bengals — who had not won a playoff game in his lifetime — minutes away from winning their first Super Bowl in only his second season.

The list of deserving accolades goes on and on, but some may wonder what the hold-up is with the deal. We can glean a bit of it via a recent report from Ian Rapoport at NFL Network.

At first listen, some fans may be panicked to hear the deal isn’t about to be signed. That is fair, but the reality is there seems to be a timing we can expect by looking at what Rapoport is saying.

“You know, history has shown us that a lot of these quarterback situations, really big contracts in general, either get done right around the start of training camp or potentially delay a player’s participation,” Rapoport said. “We’ve seen numerous hold-ins over the last couple of years...

I would surely expect that for Joe Burrow though the timing will see his agent Brian Ayrault, who has repped several other big-time players, including Joey Bosa. Had Bosa basically do a deal right before the Chargers were set to report, perhaps that is the case here, either way, Burrow is going to be highly, highly paid, perhaps even the highest-paid quarterback in football. We’ll see where this plays out, but I am with Mike (Garafolo) on this one. Does not sound like anything is imminent.”

The Bosa deal was a huge one. After quarterback, premium pass rushers are next in line for huge franchise contracts, and if Burrow’s agent waited till around the beginning of training camp for that, then we should expect that here as well.

Cincinnati kicked off its 2022 training camp in late July, and we are barely into June, so there is plenty of time, and both sides may wait for that time. The deal with get done as both sides seem to be very motivated to make this a long-lasting relationship. Just don’t worry if this dips into a little bit of training camp.