How Top NFL Agents Would Handle Ja'Marr Chase-Bengals Impasse | 4 Downs

Bengals Colossally Expensive Game of Chicken with Ja'Marr Chase, Bold Predictions from Inside the NFL, and More!

The NFL season is set to kickoff, but in Cincinnati, there are storm clouds rolling in.

Four Downs begins with a look inside a contract impasse that flew under the radar for much of the summer before unleashing a line of F-five tornadoes ahead of a Super Bowl season set to get underway.

We also take the temperature of those inside the league more time before the season begins for real, seeking their boldest reasonable predictions for the season, my plea for some summer sanity on the NFL’s incremental march towards August football, and much more.

Let’s get after it …

First Down: Making Sense of Ja’Marr Chase Holdout, Where Bengals Go From Here

As Ja’Marr Chase continues to be a spectator at Cincinnati Bengals practice as preparation for Week 1 against the New England Patriots officially gets underway, I reached out to a prominent NFL agent who represents several players at the top of their positions to get his take on how he’d handle the impasse if Chase were his client. He needed just one word.

“Sit,” the agent texted me.

Chase, 24, is one of the most prolific wide receivers in the sport and is fresh off the first 100-reception season of his career, despite wildly inconsistent quarterback play in Joe Burrow’s absence for much of the season, for 1,216 yards and seven touchdowns.

Despite having two years remaining on his current deal, and set to make $4.86 million in 2024 (a bargain given his stature at a premium position), Chase has conducted a “hold-in” in hopes of securing a long-term contract extension that makes him one of the highest-paid receivers in the league.

“These things have become far too common,” a current NFL front office executive and former general manager tells me. “It’s bad for the player, and bad for the team.”

While the inconvenience for the Bengals — who fortunately for Cincinnati open up against the lowly and rebuilding Patriots