Locked On Bengals - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Bengals - Breaking Down a Potential Joe Burrow Restructure - Why It Could Signal a New Bengals Approach to Free Agency

Episode Date: February 11, 2026

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.Everydayer ClubIf you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans.Click here to learn more and join your team’s community: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everydayerclubJoin the Locked On Bengals Insider Community! https://joinsubtext.com/lockedonbengalsFind and follow Locked On Bengals on your favorite podcast platforms:Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/locked-on-bengals-daily-podcast-on-the-cincinnati-bengals/id1159723162Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7AObc0lh0WmQl5fJVgtajsGoogle Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vbG9ja2Vkb25iZW5nYWxz?sa=X&ved=0CAYQrrcFahcKEwio_sXtj8nuAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAgStitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/locked-on-bengalsSupport Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!TurboTaxFor a limited time, you can have your taxes done by a local TurboTax expert for just $150 — all in, if a TurboTax expert didn’t file for you last year. Just file by February 28. Visit http://TurboTax.com/local to book your appointment today.FanDuelThe Winter Games are on. And there’s no better way to follow them than with a bet on FanDuel. FanDuel - Play your game.IndeedListeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/lockedonnfl.  FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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. We'll break it down now. You are locked on Bengals, your daily Cincinnati Bengals podcast, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. What up Bengals fans and welcome to another episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast,

part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day and the number one sports podcast network. in the land. He's James Rapine. I'm Jake. Let's go. We've been covering the Cincinnati Bengals here on Lockdown Bengals collectively since 2016, the inception of this podcast,

making it a fantastic one-stop shop for all things. Bengals, we will keep you up to date all offseason long. And obviously, through the regular season as the Bengals are going into this off-season 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. Welcome back to all the everydayers. You've heard us allude to this restructure a few times in the last few weeks.

Welcome back to everyone who makes lockdown Bengals their first listen. Today we'll dive into the restructure options for the Bengals. And we hinted 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. And of course, that starts with Joe Burrow. He's got the biggest cap hit for the Bengals in 26. And part of the equation for the Bengals is their salary cap, when you see a salary cap number for the Bengals, it is more real than it is for probably 30 of the other teams in the NFL who don't

treat the cap as conservatively as the Bengals. So that's part of this conversation. That's why this is so relevant. That's the overarching backdrop here is for the Bengals, when you talk about free agency, they're going to spend a certain amount of cash and they're going to treat their cap pretty stringently. They're going to say that, yeah, that's what the cap is. That's how we have to behave. But this year, the way things are shaping up and the way they've done some contracts recently leads you to believe they're preparing for the possibility of a restructure. But you might be wondering what that is and why it would make sense and why we're starting with Joe Burrow because maybe you don't know what exactly a restructure is. Yeah. We'll get into that overall.

And I've hinted on it or I discussed it yesterday. The idea that Joe Burrow would be against. Because this is like a common thing. Is Joe willing or is Joe? There's no bone in Joe Burroughs body. I'll speak for you, Joe. That isn't willing to restructure. It doesn't want to restructure. It doesn't want to restructural. that wouldn't love that problem because it doesn't hurt his bottom line and it would give the Bengals more flexibility to do what, Jake? Add talent and that's it or keep talent or retain talent or do whatever else they need to do with that room, which it better be one of those things that I just named. Like that's it.

So I've seen, I try to monitor and keep the pulse of comments and stuff. Is Joe Burrow willing to? Yes. I promise you Joe Burrow will restructure. Whenever the Bengals need him to restructure this offseason, or if they want him to or they ask him to, he's going to be more than willing to do so with the idea that they're going to put that money or that space into the team.

Yeah, so what exactly is a restructure? One, why would Joe Burrow be so amenable to it? Like you said, it doesn't impact his bottom line. It changes essentially nothing for the player most of the time. It converts salary dollars into pro-rated bonus dollars. That's why you'll see when it's reported that so-and-so player converted all of his salary into a signing bonus. And you might think, oh, that's more upfront money for a player. Sometimes it is a lot of the times that still gets paid out over the course of the season as a game check.

So it doesn't necessarily even front load cash. That does depend on the player sometimes. Sometimes they do pay out some of the money up front. But typically, it really changes literally nothing except. the accounting. So to understand this, you have to understand, and the people that have heard us talk about the salary cap in the past understand this already. So apologies, this is a repeat for an everydayer, but the salary cap is an accounting tool. It's just saying, when are we accounting for the cash we spent? Has nothing to do with when teams are actually paying cash, when players are

actually being paid. You take a restructure of a salary. The salary is a non-pro-rated part of a contract that a player is going to get paid in game checks over the course of a year. It's not a signing bonus or an option bonus or anything like that that's getting paid out in a potential lump sum. Those are prorated monies that can go over the life of a contract up to five years and into void years. And so what a restructure would do for Joe Burroughs, it would take his $25.25 million dollar salary for 2026.

And they would lower his salary to a veteran minimum salary. It would be something like $1.2 million. give or take. That would leave $24 million, let's say, that they would convert then to a signing bonus. That's still money that Joe gets paid. That takes no dollars, zero dollars out of Joe Burroughs pocket. It just says, we're not going to do it as a salary. We're going to do it in this different accounting mechanism. It's going to be a bonus now. We're going to take that bonus, and we're going to spread it out over up to five years. And he already has void years in his deal. So no reason for the Bengals not to go into those void years and just use all five years to pro rate that money

out, lower that cap hit as much as possible. And what that ends up doing is it lowers his cap hit by about $19 million this year. Because you take that $24 million and spread it out over five years. That means you're taking, let's round up, about $5 million per year plus a million dollars of salary. So you go from $25 million down to $6 million in that adjustment because you're spreading out when you're accounting for that expense over the next five years. So maybe that's a little bit dry to you, but those are the nitty gritty details of how a restructure works and why Joe Burrow wouldn't be opposed to it, right? Because the bottom line here is, is that it gives the Bengals more cap flexibility for this year at the expense of a little bit of cap space in future

years, which you might think is a drawback. But the way the cap is increasing, those increases in future years, you don't even necessarily feel in a big way, at least for a few years. You might feel it at the end of the contract a little bit. But the way the cap is going, the reason that teams are able to restructure in perpetuity, essentially some of these teams that are really aggressively restructuring is because of the trajectory of the salary cap. So if your borough, your bottom line is unaffected,

and now your team has more salary cap space so they can spend more cash this year to make the team better. So why, to your point, James, Joe Burrow would have no qualms with being restructured, if even as a say, and I'm still pretty sure that the Bengals have unilateral rights to restructure this deal if they see that that's what they want to do. And which is something Joe obviously agreed to in the deal. Look, he's been asked about this, and last year especially when it was like, oh, are you going

to be able to keep everybody? And I want to hammer this point home, too, because it's a narrative that is ignorant. to be honest. And I don't think the Bengals believe it, by the way, because they wouldn't have done these deals. They pay Joe Jom R&T. They have resources to pay other players. And this idea, and I get it, if you're in every day or you roll your eyes at this already, and that's fine. But while we're addressing the restructure element, we might as well. They have the resources. They have the ability to go out and play ball now, even before the restructure. But if they want to do it, do that to give themselves more flexibility, which would be great, assuming they use it and put it

toward making the team better, I think everybody would be on board with that. And I certainly hope that they're in that position to where they do that, to where they're active enough in free agency, to say, oh, well, yeah, we're going to restructure Joe, and we're going to put that toward this, this, and this, and whoever it is, right? I mean, with the money you save with the Joe restructure could be Brian Cook, Leo Chanel, and Boye-Mafé and their cap-hit. Like it could be like multiple starting guys or guys that you think are going to be

significant upgrades on defense from a cap-hit standpoint for this year. And that's it. That's why we were very critical of them last year with the Jamar and T and their cap-hits. Yeah, the episode title, if you're looking for that,

is the Bengals committed cat malpractice or something along those lines. Just look for locked-on Bengals cat malpractice and you'll find out. and it stinks because you want to keep those players, but you don't want to minimize what you can do around them. And so because you do stuff like that, then people that say,

oh, well, you can't afford this. Well, of course you can. But you're going to have to be a bit more proactive here. And part of being proactive is maybe having your first true restructure of a big contract that we've seen. So we'll continue the conversation when it comes to Joe Burrow, the cap and what it can mean for this offseason coming up next. Speaking of accounting, that's the last thing you want to do.

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All that needs to happen is you go to a TurboTax expert. And if you didn't have a TurboTax expert file for you last year, all you have to do is file by February 28th, all in, $150. Take taxes off your plate, get back to your life. Visit turbotax.com slash local to book your appointment today. James, people might be wondering why this conversation needs to happen. As you're explaining, getting out of our first segment, the first true restructure, the Bengals technically did very, very slightly restructured Joe Mixon's contract when they reworked it.

Yeah. It's basically a pay cut. It was more of a pay cut than a restructure. There was technically a little bit of a restructure involved there, but more of a pay cut than a restructure. Very, very minor restructure in terms of converting base salary into prorated bonus. But I think technically there was a little restructure there. What we're talking about here is something that the Bengals haven't done. This is simply a cap saving mechanism that has no impact on the bottom line.

that I don't really count to Joe Mixon one is because it did impact the bottom line. Joe Mixon took less money home and they converted a little bit of the accounting as part of that process. This is something that the Bengals could do if they saw fit with Joe Burrow, Jammar Chase, honestly, even T. Higgins, although there's less reason to do it for T than for potentially Jamar or Joe. But there are a ton of cap savings that Bengals could realize this year. if they were interested in doing so. And the impact, like I said, the impact on future years is pretty small.

If they fully restructured Joe this year to save just over $19 million of cap space, it would reduce their cap space in future years by like $5 million a year. So you're going from $150 plus million in 2027 to $145 million, let's say, in 2027. They have so much cap space in the future. they have so few big contracts into future years, so few veterans under contract in 2027 and beyond. So there's not a huge downside to this.

It would let them potentially put more cap dollars for anyone they did sign this year into 2026, which again I would be critical of, but it gives them all the flexibility they could possibly need at such a minimal downside and lets them play in the sandbox of some of the other teams in the NFL that are more willing to manipulate their cap and make the moves that they need to make.

And so it would be a substantial step for the Cincinnati Bengals to restructure Joe Burroughs contract. This is something that we've been asking for them to do or consider these tools for years. They've had opportunities to do this on a smaller scale in the past and they have declined to do so. And if you see that come from the Bengals this year and they might not do it until they need to.

So you might not see this sort of thing happen until well into free agency, that would be a sign that they are doing things a little bit differently this offseason. And that's why we're spending so much time talking about it. And I think there's a decent chance that they do do things a bit differently this offseason. Now, as we push the conversation forward, how differently will it be? I think they know they need to spend money. We've seen that in 2020 and 2021 specifically.

and even 22 with Orlando's contract, even though they fell into that, but they still got it done. And so we've seen that. Are they willing to go after, insert whatever free agent, and the difference between them signing with the Ravens and signing with you is an extra year or partial guarantees in year two or whatever the case is, right? And that burned them with Kevin Zitler. Like they wanted to go two years on Kevin Zitler. The Ravens went three. That's way back in 21. Kevin Zitler is a free agent to be right now.

Will it burn them with some of their current guys? Dalton Reisner, I'm sure he wants at least partial guarantees in year two. Would they have to do that? Do they feel compelled to do that? Will he hit free agency because of that? Who knows? Will it prevent them from getting Dax done or DJ done? But that's what I'm curious about.

And it can prevent you from getting the players that you want, but it can also keep you from keeping the guys you want, which is why Jamar took an extra year. It's because of the guarantees. And so that's it. That's what makes it tough. And we'll see how flexible they are in that department. Yeah, we've obviously seen them have issues with that.

But the first step to me is like, show me that you're not treating the cap as this firm line that is what it is. do anything about it. Stop equating spending to the cap while we're at it as well. You've probably heard the Duke Tobin quotes like, we're spending to the cap. We had the X highest spend in 2025, and he's talking about cap spend.

He's not talking about actual cash spend. We just know better now at this point to understand the way these minor, seemingly minor, seemingly, dry accounting conversations are really paramount to doing the most you can to make your team as good as you can make it, which is, you know, it's annoying when Duke Tobin scoffs when you bring that up at his press conference, James. He's like, oh, we want to talk about contract structure. Yeah, Duke, I do. I do. I do want to talk about contract structure because you are one of only a couple of teams in the NFL that do it the way you do it.

I think it's a Packers and the Steelers are the only teams that are as obstinate about, year two guarantees as the Bengals. But those teams, I think, are more willing to restructure contracts than the Bengals who are absolutely unwilling to do so. So it's not just Joe. We'll see if they consider it for either of these wide receivers. Maybe that's a future conversation, but it is noteworthy that either of these wide receivers being T or Jemar who have the big contracts as well.

It is noteworthy that I believe all three of those contracts, certainly Jumar and T, the Bengals do have the ability to restructure those. They've started to put that into their contracts. They don't need the player's permission. Again, it doesn't impact the player negatively. If anything, it makes it more likely for the player to see future years of that deal if there was a potential cut, not that any of these guys are guys that I think the Bengals would consider cutting. But there's no real downside to the player.

The Bengals did put it in those contracts, though, so they can just trigger these restructures whenever they need to, which hopefully is a sign that that is something they're considering, because when we start to talk about their ability to actually execute at the top end of the free agent market, if they have an appetite to do so, which we're not sure that they really do. But even if they wanted to, they might need to do things like this to compete at the top end of the market. And you started to hint at that with things like year two guarantees. But cash flow, also a big part of that, the willingness to spend cash and the willingness to create. create space so that you can spend more cash in the short term for a couple of years.

That can be directly tied up in these restructures, which is why to me it's such a kind of watershed thing to watch for, James, is because it could signal that all these other approach differences and changes could happen as well. And now is the time, like I'll just reiterate this and make it very, very clear. Like if you, if they put their chips in and they did, they researched. structured and they really went for it over the next couple of years and they treated this window like it, like it should be treated. And the end of the Joe Burrow era comes and they have to pay the piper, so to speak, when it comes to the cap and all of those things, and they

have a down year or two. Guess what? That's probably going to happen regardless at the end of the Joe Burrow era. And right now, you're 24 and 27 over the past three years. Right now, Jamar Chase, we were like, what was it like to have your first losing season? Jamar and he's like, we've had a losing season for three straight years in his mind. Even though that's not factually true, they haven't made the playoffs. Can't have it. And so that, you're right,

like the watershed moment, this is kind of it. Like, Joe Burrow turns 30 in December. And that doesn't mean that he's not going to be good at quarterback at 34, but he needs to believe that he has a chance to win every single year. So he is playing quarterback for the Bengals when he's 34. And that's, that's it.

And you can always push. it down a little bit. And we're not asking them, I always say that, I'm not asking you to be the Saints, but you can be more in than you've been. And I certainly meant to rhyme there. And so hopefully the Bengals take our advice. There's, there's an interesting nugget from an NFL insider on what free agency, what this offseason could look like. And do you think it applies to the Bengals a bit because we know that they need to add a bunch of talent. We'll get into that coming up next. Today's show is brought to you by Fandall. Fandall is America's number one sports book, and the winter games are here.

They're on my screen all the time. Jake, I don't have it on right now in the office, but really outside of like recording times, I have the Olympics on and I'm watching it. And you know what makes it better? Fandall. Fandle gives you more ways to stay connected to all of the winter games, all of the Olympic action from the drama of curling matches that start slow, somehow get intense, boom, super fast to all of the different ski events, which some of them, I'm not even going to pretend.

I know the name of, but they're entertaining. Fandall keeps the entire Olympic experience. Engaging from start to finish, the winter games are on. Enjoy the two-week sprint with Fandall. There's no better way to follow them than with Fandall. Fandle, play your game. Part of the conversation for the Bengals of soft season is going to be what kind of players they try to bring in. Do they try to bring in top end established players? Can they sign top end

established players if they are available in free agency? And to your point, James, well, they be available in free agency. A trend that I've been talking about for a couple of years now is the rising tide of the salary cap, the primary effect of that to me has been, the teams are more able than they've been in the free agency era to keep their own players. And that ties into the quote that you wanted to discuss here as well that ties into the idea of bringing in top-end players. Yeah. And look, I want to preface it by saying there's no excuse to not bring in talent

that's going to help you win now this offseason, period. Right? And I know Bengals fans love Adam Schaefter and how he's, reported different Bengals things over the past couple of years. But I did think this was noteworthy. On his podcast, he said, quote, I've had GMs from front offices and scouts. I've been looking at this free agent class and saying, not a great class. These teams have done a great job of tying up their own players long term and making sure they don't get to free agency.

When we talk about the drafts and we'll see how it shakes out over time, but people aren't all that excited about the 2026 draft either. So we've got a free agency class that's not real deep. We've got a draft that's not considered real deep. And then he goes on to say, could teams go the trade route and we see more trades and we see more activity there because there's going to be teams that want to add to their roster? By the way, all the more reason to trade or tag and trade, Trey Hendrickson, which I think is a no-brainer. I think there will be services or suitors for his services. But yeah, it's one thing to say, go out and sign all these guys, Jake. it's another when it doesn't feel like,

like I was looking at the PFF top 150 and like at 110 or something like that, Gino Stone was there. Like can you imagine? You know, I'm just, it's one of those things. Nick Scott was right underneath him, which I thought was kind of interesting

that Scott was below Gino Stone. Regardless, it may be a shallow class. Things may go a certain way. The Bengals are going to have to be open to whatever it takes from a creativity standpoint, which scares me to say to make sure that they bolster their roster

and make the necessary changes this off season. Yeah, probably need to explore trades a little bit more, be open to trades. They have to do something to facilitate talent acquisition, whether it's, they have all these different levers they can pull, right? Acquiring more draft picks, using draft picks to acquire established high-end talent by trading for it, right?

Restructuring contracts and pushing more guarantees into year two of the deals for some of these players that are high-end players that you shouldn't be really worried about. Are we going to regret being on the hook for that year two? Well, the way you structure contracts, you're effectively on the hook for a lot of year-toos anyway. So why not? If it's a player that's worth it, Jesse Bates being the most pressing example in Bengals history, or speaking of guys this year, Adafi Oa is represented by David Malageta. So like if you wanted to get things done with David Malageta and put this storyline that we're all sick of to rest, Bengals can't get deals done with David Malageta, multi-year big deals,

not counting the one-year Josepho side deal that some of you are thinking about right now. Well, just go do it. And if that player is going to be a big part of your future, you're not going to regret having that guarantee in year two. But a big part of the conversation is going to be how many of these guys actually reach free agency. And that's part of why the Bengals shouldn't be letting Trey Hendrickson just walk out the door, just go reach free agency. Because guys like that just generally don't get there.

They're generally at this point being retained, which is why when you have a valuable asset and you've seen the chiefs do this, probably the most lately, I think when we looked at the examples, it was the chiefs that showed up the most, the tag and trade exists as an option, and you need to be agile enough to use that, or any of these other things that I'm talking about here, to find ways to add more talent, and do things that you haven't done,

and certainly haven't done regularly. And I am still in the, I'll believe it when I see it mold. You still have people talking about, this is the biggest offseason for the Bengals in the Joe Burrow era. I think that the last two off seasons were, and this is them trying to catch up. And it still is a big offseason. Don't get me wrong. But the way the last two went, they have so much ground to make up and have to do things so differently this year that I guess I'm feeling real cynical about it, James.

Like, show me. Then, okay. Then we can move on. And they better show you. Like, this isn't, this isn't optional. This isn't optional because nine, I'm telling you, I laugh at all the trade stuff and all that speculation. It's not going to happen this offseason.

But business is good when Joe Burroughs your quarterback. So you better make sure Joe feels like he has the pieces to win. And I can guarantee you Joe didn't feel like they had enough talent last year, which is why they went one and eight without him. One in eight without him should be impossible. It should be, they would be picking number one. Joe Brow didn't play for the Bengals. Like, even with the flacco trade, even with all those things, they were tied for the worst record during that nine game stretch.

So that's like just saying that, it should infuriate everybody at Paycor Stadium. And so, yeah, whatever it takes should be, that should be the mantra, not physical, hungry, accountable teammate. And I get it. I'm blending in the coaches and Zach Taylor. No, it needs to be whatever it takes, Captain America style from. from the Avengers with the world hanging in the balance. But are they willing to do it? That's really the bottom line.

I know. Are they willing to do things differently? Because this is still the Bengals. This is, I think, something that a lot of people are learning, that kind of came around to following this team when Joe Burrow arrived and they started making these playoff pushes

and had these stars that they haven't had at this level. The Bengals haven't done year two guarantees. they generally are not signing tier one free agents, not in terms of what they're getting paid. Trey Hendrickson, great signing, was not a top of the market player when he signed that first contract with the Bengals. DJ Reeder probably the closest thing

to a top end signing that this team has done. They paid him top of market money for a nose tackle. When they signed him, that's probably the only one you can make an argument for. And that is not a top of the pecking order position in terms of money you get paid. No sacos still aren't getting paid, you know, league bending, mind-wurping money

the way some of these other positions are valued. So that's what we need to see, right? Like, are they going to start changing the way they do some of these things, evolving with the rest of the NFL where second-year guarantees are increasingly common, restructures are increasingly common, understand the cap environment you're in.

Because until then, that question does linger. Can the Bengals actually sign? line those top end free agents that theoretically, yeah, sure, they can. But until they show us that they're willing to behave in a way that attracts those players and gets those deals done, there's no reason to really think that they will. And so that's what leads me to ask that question, despite everything you're saying, like it shouldn't be optional. It's not optional.

They need to do these. Yeah. Well, that's been the case of last few years to me too, James. And they haven't gotten there. Yeah. Yeah, I think, oh, way, away, away, away. That would be a, that would be a fun one. Can you imagine?

And look, it's got to be more than one guy, and it can be whatever number of guys. But they have to, they have to add in free agency. If the right trade comes along, they have to do that. Maximizing your assets with tray. Like, that's what we're saying. We're saying, do everything you can. If you need to restructure, do that. If you need to make a trade do that, if you need to.

And at times in their. their tenure, they've done that. They've spent in free agency at certain times, even if it wasn't top of the market free agents. They've made trades over the past couple of years. It all needs to come together. You need to do all of it because that's, when you're six and 11,

you're a flawed at best football team. And they have a lot of flaws. Yeah, a lot of areas for improvement, let's say. And a lot of options out there, honestly, to address it, even though it is seen as a week or free agent class, a weaker draft class. It doesn't mean there aren't ways to improve your team.

It means you're probably going to overspend. That's the nature of free agency a little bit. But there are a bunch of guys out there that because of the state of your defense could go a long way. If they are willing to invest the way that Ian Rappaport said they were earlier in the week. And that's why the restructure thing is something that we're watching for so closely. We'll be watching for contract structures very closely. when we put together the projections for what we think cash bank will look like for the Bengals this year and all of those things that I'll be working on here in the coming weeks myself personally,

and we'll share with you when that work is done. But that's going to do it for this episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast. Thanks for listening. And until next time, Houda and have a good one.