Meanwhile, Higgins signed a four-year, $115 million contract. Joe Burrow was all smiles when he saw Chase and Higgins in the Bengals locker room. "Big money in here right now, big money," Burrow said with a laugh.

But waiting in the locker room was perhaps the most important one: Quarterback Joe Burrow, who showed the public who really is in charge. “I think everybody was confident we’d get Ja’Marr done,” Burrow told the Bengals’ website. “But to be able to get Tee done along with that speaks volumes about ownership, Duke, Zac.”

The Cincinnati Bengals are one of only two teams in the NFL that don't have a general manager, but it seems like they might have one now: Joe Burrow.  Sure, he's actually the quarterback, but he might as well be the Bengals' general manager because he was the catalyst for Cincinnati's two biggest moves of the 2025 offseason and those were the new deals for Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins that came on Sunday night.