6/24/24: Sam Bruchhaus of Sumer Sports.

Sam Bruchhaus of Sumer Sports wrote a solid piece how Justin Jefferson's deal could affect what happens with Ja'Marr Chase, as well as other wide receivers who are seeking long-term deals.

Sam joined us on ESPN1530.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You know, we love the folksat Suomer sportssoomer sports dot com. There's
a good piece in the aftermath ofJustin Jefferson's deal, and it kind of
focuses on the Dallas Cowboys and CeedeeLamb. But there's also a pretty pretty
large chunk of it that spends timeon Jamar Chase and what may or may
not be next for him and theBengals. And this is something we have

(00:21):
talked about a bunch. I tweetedout a link at moeger Sambrook House.
He is a data scientist with SummerSports, but he played college football at
Tulane, So don't get mad atme, like, oh, you're having
a nerd on. No, thisdude played college football, he wrote the
piece, and he's with us now. Hi sam Hi mod, thank you
for having me. Great to talkto the people of Cincinnati. Like you

(00:44):
said, I played at Tulane,so I've had my share of coming into
contact with the Bearcats and the DesmondRiders of the world. I understand.
Let's talk about the Jamar Chases ofthe world. You know, you kind
of guy, get into here.Some of the things the Bengals typically do
and don't do when it comes toguaranteed money and whatnot. And you know,

(01:06):
Jamar Chase is a unique guy becausehe's kind of tethered to the to
the hip of Joe Burrow. They'vemade an exception for Joe Burrow. Let's
just say, all right, theJustin Jefferson's deal is done. I put
you in charge of the Bengals.I give you Duke Tobin's job. Are
you making an exception for Jamar Chase? Are you exceeding what Justin Jefferson got
and giving him more here in Cincinnati? It's tough. It's tough to say,

(01:32):
mo. You know, they've stuckto their guns when it comes to
guaranteeing money basically across the board andJoe Burrow, what's a special case.
Like you said, I think JamarChase is probably also a special case here.
And I think the way that themarket is moving, if you can
stay away from some really high valuesthat may not be guaranteed in exchange for

(01:57):
putting some of that money in thesigning bonus, paying it up front,
and guaranteeing it there, I thinkthat may be something of interest to the
Bengals overall. Though, I thinkI predict that they probably stick to their
guns given kind of the way themarket is going right now. And Justin
Jefferson had a lot of really interestingpieces of his contract which have gone quite

(02:19):
in excess of the market, andI think the Bengals probably want to stay
away from that. And I thinkthis Ceedee Lamb deal, Jamar Chase market,
we saw him, tag T Higgins, I think those are all showing
that they're going to try to playit a little bit more conservative with Chase
right now. All right, Sothen let's say Jamar Chase goes out,
has a killer season, the Bengalswin big with him, and now there's

(02:42):
not as much time left on thedeal. What happens then, So here's
the good thing, Jamar. Theystarted fantastic wide receiver, definitely top of
the game. When you look atthe advanced analytics, he's just a hair
below Justin Jefferson and Ceedee Lamb reallyplayed really well last year. So you
know, Red hour Back I believehas a phrase, I may be butchering

(03:04):
it that I always want to paygood players, but I never want to
pay bad players. And so youknow, if he goes down and has
a great season, I think you'remore than happy and not happy to bring
him in. The only element thatthey would be missing out on would be
generally when teams extend players, theyreap a little bit of a discount just

(03:24):
because the cat is generally increasing andin recent years has increased a lot.
The Eagles saw this with the DevonteSmith contracts that they gave out. They
would reap a little bit of abenefit there. But nonetheless, Chase is
a top flight wide receiver and we'llprobably get paid like a top flight wide
receiver at the end of the day. I'm kind of wondering here from a

(03:45):
from a league wide perspective, right, Like, obviously the player who's getting
squeezed out, guys like Justin Jeffersonare always going to get paid. It's
also a position where you know,you watch enough college football, it feels
like every Saturday, I'm watching adude that I go boy, that guy
could play In the ENDFL teams arefinding value lower in the draft when or
maybe maybe this isn't going to happen, but when is the bubble gonna burst?

(04:06):
So to speak? Even for theupper rational and wide receivers. It's
interesting to say, I think,particularly with the Jefferson contract and having so
much more guaranteed money than has everhistorically been done in any market. You
know, Jefferson is the highest paidnon quarterback in the history of the National

(04:27):
Football League. I think it's aresult, like you said, of starting
at the high school level, greatskill based coaching all the way up,
and people are just a lot moredeveloped as soon as they come into the
league. I think talking about theBengals an interesting kind of he could be

(04:48):
a beneficiary depending on how he playsthis year. But you know, the
Bengals also drafted Jermaine Burton, wholooked at as a guy who's swayed in
the draft, but it's extremely talentedplays at outside res position that te Higgins
also plays. And it may notbe the tippy top guys that get squeezed,
but you know, the great widereceiver twos in the league, the

(05:08):
great Z receivers who get squeezed infavor of guys like Jermain Burton who are
who are drafted a little later.So T Higgins is going to play this
season in Cincinnati, and then,barring something totally unforeseen, is going to
be playing for a different team intwenty twenty five. What do you think
the market's going to look like forhim? It's very interesting. I think

(05:30):
the closest situation we've seen kind ofto T Higgins right now, it's Calvin
Ridley, who just signed a newcontract. That being said, T Higgins
is an excellent prospect, and youknow, playing with Jamar Chase has really
been you know, a wide receiverone A and a wide receiver one B.
It'll be interesting. I expect,like you said, that he will

(05:50):
not be in Cincinnati next year,given that he just went ahead and signed
the franchise tag and decided to runit back without you know, holdout or
any thing like that. Maybe there'san understanding there that they'll get it done
next year in tandem with Chase.But I'd expect him to probably have a
good year this year. With Burrowback in the rains, the bands kind

(06:12):
of be back together and then kindof sail off to another team, become
a wide receiver one, a trueX with that big body that he has,
and probably be successful. I thinkhe's probably a wide receiver one in
this league, and the Bengals havehonestly been blessed to have two pretty solid
wide receivers over the last couple ofyears, Sam brocasts with this sumer Sports.

(06:33):
You can find his piece suomer sportsdot com. His name is not
spelled like it sounds, and sothe easiest thing for me to do to
tell you to find him on socialmedia is just go find me and click
on the thing and then go followhim. You know, as we talk
about this, I'm thinking about thisoffseason. Then. You know, a
year ago at this time, everybodywas complaining, God, running backs aren't

(06:55):
getting paid. And there's been beenyears of discussions about the devaluation of that
position, and now we've seen somerunning backs get paid, including I think,
to the surprise of a lot ofpeople here, Joe Mixon leaves Cincinnati,
they send him to Houston, andthey extend him and pay him more
money. What do you make ofof kind of what's happening, not even
with the upper tier guys of thatposition, but even some players who are

(07:16):
sort of in that next year down, like Joe Mixon. I think there's
a lot of kind of musical chairsgoing on in the running back market.
And I think the reason why thatis is because teams have been gearing up
for these kind of deals that havegone out to j Justson, Justin Jefferson
for the Key Higgins situation that wasjust resolved last week at least for this

(07:41):
season for Jamar Chase extension. Andunfortunately, when you look at the running
back position, it's just one thatis very difficult to predict year every year.
And so you know Joe Mixon leaving, Zach Moss coming into the Bengals
now, a guy who was arunning back too with the Colts last year's
self success when Taylor was out.It's a of course Joe mixing this great

(08:05):
player. There is risk there withgoing with you know, a cheaper option
and and uh, lending yourself moreto uncertainty. But it's a very uncertain
market. You know, running backsget hurt a lot. The kind of
stereotypical version of that is what's happened, what happened to Todd Gurley years ago
with the Rams, and I thinkyou try to stay away from from big

(08:26):
deals with running backs given the propensitythey got hurt. And ironically, mo
in this wide receiver market, there'sbeen trickle down effects from the Cowboy's giving
out a massive deal to Zeke Elliottall those years ago, and that's actually
the reason why they're kind of stillin a holding pattern with Ceedee Lamb and
Dak Prescott. They're big two stars, So that's kind of what's been happening

(08:50):
across the league. But it's reallymore how it affect all the other players
and all the other chess beats onthe board. I think is why the
Bengals are probably okay with letting mixand walk, No question about that.
Sam, awesome stuff. Man,We'll do it again. I do appreciate
the time, appreciate it. Mo