Others have suggested it hurts their championship chances and diminishes Joe Burrow. Former NFL head coach Eric Mangini fits into the latter group and suggested on FS1's "First Things First" that Burrow has put himself in a tough spot.

When Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins flew to Cincinnati on Tuesday to sign their new contracts totaling nearly $300 million, they were greeted at the team facility by the Bengals’ top executives — coach Zac Taylor, director of player personnel Duke Tobin, and the team’s ownership, Mike Brown and Katie Blackburn.

The Cincinnati Bengals are one of only two teams in the NFL that don't have a general manager, but it seems like they might have one now: Joe Burrow.  Sure, he's actually the quarterback, but he might as well be the Bengals' general manager because he was the catalyst for Cincinnati's two biggest moves of the 2025 offseason and those were the new deals for Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins that came on Sunday night.