Breaking Down a Potential Joe Burrow Restructure - Why It Could Signal a New Bengals Approach to Free Agency

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4.7 • 854 Ratings

🗓️ 11 February 2026

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Restructuring Joe Burrow's contract could create more than $19 million of cap space for the Cincinnati Bengals in 2026 without affecting Burrow's bottom line. Jake Liscow and James Rapien break down exactly what a "restructure" means, how it creates cap space at minimal cost, why Burrow wouldn't be opposed, and why it could signal a more impactful offseason of talent acquisition for a front office that needs to display agility and creativity in free agency.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You've probably heard discussion about restructuring Joe Burroughs contract, but maybe you don't know what exactly that means for the Cincinnati Bengals or why it would help them.
0:09.7	We'll break it down now.
0:15.1	You are Locked on Bengals, your daily Cincinnati Bengals podcast.
0:22.2	Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day.
0:27.7	What up Bengals fans and welcome to another episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast.
0:31.3	Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day and the number one sports podcast network in the land.
0:36.8	He's James Rapine.
0:37.5	I'm Jake.
0:37.8	Let's go.
0:38.2	We've been covering the Cincinnati Bengals here on lockdown Bengals collectively
0:42.1	since 2016, the inception of this podcast, making it a fantastic one-stop shop for
0:48.8	all things.
0:49.4	Bengals, we will keep you up to date all offseason long and obviously through the regular season as the Bengals are going into this offseason trying to find ways to rebuild and add to this defense that very clearly needs to be better for them to compete on the game's highest stages.
1:08.9	Welcome back to all the everydayers. You've heard us allude to this
1:12.5	restructure a few times in the last few weeks. Welcome back to everyone who makes lockdown Bengals
1:17.5	their first listen. Today we'll dive into the restructure options for the Bengals. And we hinted
1:24.4	at this yesterday when we talked about cap cut candidates, why restructuring contracts might make more sense if the Bengals are interested in spending a little bit more cash this year and want to use the cap to their advantage.
1:36.9	And of course, that starts with Joe Burrow. He's got the biggest cap hit for the Bengals in 2026.
1:43.8	And part of the equation for the Bengals is their salary cap,
1:49.0	when you see a salary cap number for the Bengals, it is more real than it is for probably
1:53.9	30 of the other teams in the NFL who don't treat the cap as conservatively as the Bengals.
2:02.9	So that's part of this conversation.
	...

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