The Los Angeles Chargers just made Derwin James the highest-paid safety in the NFL. The deal doesn’t just affect the Chargers or the poor AFC offenses that James will terrify this season. It also affects every NFL safety looking for a new contract in the near future. The player most affected by the deal is Cincinnati Bengals holdout Jessie Bates III, who just got a new contract extension target to shoot at thanks to James’ $19.1 million per year deal.
The highest-paid players at each position in the NFL set the market for all their fellow stars at the position. A perfect example of this is what happened when Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver Christian Kirk signed his four-year, $72 million free agent deal this summer.
With an annual average value of $18 million, the deal put Kirk in the top five of highest-paid WRs. That didn’t sit well with all the many wideouts in the NFL who are better than Kirk.
After the pass-catchers who wanted new deals either got ones from their teams or got traded so someone else could pay them, Kirk’s AAV fell to T-18 in the league.
Now Derwin James—who’s made two Pro Bowls and one All-Pro team in his first three seasons—is the highest-paid safety in the NFL by AAV. His AAV is $19.1M, ahead of the Pittsburgh Steelers' Minkah Fitzpatrick ($18.4M) and the Seattle Seahawks' Jamal Adams ($17.6M).
The new benchmark on the safety market means that any player at the position in line for a new deal will be shooting at that number.
That’s a major problem for the Bengals.
Safety Jessie Bates is the last player in the NFL to not have signed his franchise tag tender. The one-year deal would pay him $12.911M this season. However, Bates is looking for a long-term extension that will guarantee much more money than that.
Before Bengals training camp started, notoriously frugal Bengals owner Mike Brown, director of player personnel Duke Tobin, and head coach Zac Taylor were unable to reach a deal with Bates to stay in Cincy for the long run.
The amount Bates wants or what the Bengals have offered hasn’t been widely reported, but it’s safe to say that with the highest-paid safety going from $18.4M to $19.1M after the James-Chargers deal, Bates’ demand just went up as well.
Bates hasn’t made a Pro Bowl yet but he is a top player at his position. He is also one of the most influential leaders in the locker room, which undoubtedly played a big part in the Bengals reaching the Super Bowl last year.
Whether Bates plays for the Bengals or not his season, the organization covered themselves a bit in this year’s draft. Cincinnati selected Michigan safety Dax Hill No. 31 in the first round.
However, when it comes to the contract stalemate with Jessie Bates, the Bengals problems aren’t only on the field. With the emergence of Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase, and the rest of the young and talented roster, the Bengals are a team on the rise.
If the owner doesn’t start to shake his reputation as a tightwad, keeping the bones of the roster in place for the long run could prove difficult.
Cincinnati is now between a rock and a hard place after the Chargers extended James. The team either has to pay Bates somewhere in the neighborhood of the highest-paid safety at $19M (which he’s probably not truly worth) or let him go next year and solidify its reputation as a penny-pinching franchise.
This is not a good spot to be in coming off a Super Bowl, and the Bengals can thank Derwin James and the Chargers for making their sticky situation even worse.
Contract figures courtesy of Spotrac
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