Bengas are hopeful to try and get him back onto the practice field

Bengas are hopeful to try and get him back onto the practice field

Skipping practices as he waits for a new contract could be working for Cincinnati Bengals star Ja’Marr Chase.

Appearing on the Saturday morning SportsCenter, ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler explained there is “a little bit of hope” that Chase and the Bengals could potentially get a deal done before the start of the regular season:

“The Bengals, I’m told, are trying to get this done. I’m hearing that they’ve tipped up their negotiations a little bit. And so they’re trying to get him back on the practice field, because he’s been holding in, so this has been a complicated negotiation because he’s got two years left on his contract, the Bengals have a little bit of leverage there. But if this gets done over the next few days, they can get him back on the practice field, this should fall somewhere in that $34-35 million range per year, or at least that’s the expectation, talking to people around the league because you’ve got CeeDee Lamb making $34 million a year, Justin Jefferson at 35, I don’t think he’ll surpass Jefferson, but he’s going to be really high in that stratosphere. But the problem really is the guaranteed money, the structure, the number of years. They’re still really hashing out everything is my understanding, but people are on standby in Cincinnati. There’s a feeling, a little bit of hope, a little bit of optimism, that maybe they can get this across the finish line in the next few days.”

Chase has taken an unusual approach to pressuring the Bengals. He was present for mandatory minicamp in June and all of training camp until Aug. 13.

Head coach Zac Taylor said at that time they would take Chase’s absence “one day at a time,” but declined to get into more specifics about the situation.

The Bengals indicated on Sunday that Chase returned to practice by posting a picture on X of him in uniform and catching a pass.