Andy Dalton is set to carry a $16.3MM cap number in the coming year, which is on the low end for a starting quarterback. Don’t look for them to renegotiate his deal, however. 
“We didn’t sign the Andy Dalton deal because we thought it was a good deal. At the time it was an expensive deal. It was a heavy lift,” Bengals vice president Troy Blackburn said (via the team website). “We did it because Andy was a winning starting quarterback in the National Football League, he had demonstrated that. We know statistically your best chance of success is by rewarding your own players and maintaining that quality core. That is what drove that. We are certainly aware quarterback deals have evolved since then. We know that at the right time we will have to evolve as well. We don’t think this is the time right now. What we are going to focus on right now is building the best team for 2018 we possibly can.”
The Bengals inked Dalton to a six-year deal in the summer of 2014 that made him the team’s all-time highest-paid player in terms of annual average value. The $16MM rate doesn’t look like much now, but at the time, it was a significant payout.
With Dalton under contract through 2020, the Bengals have little incentive to rework his contract at this time. His performance also hasn’t warranted a pay bump. Dalton earned Pro Bowl nods in 2014 and 2016 and quietly had a strong year in between, but last season he completed just 59.9% of his passes and threw for a career low 3,320 yards.
“We know that at the right time we will have to evolve as well.”
Will the Bengals hang a banner with those words at the stadium entrance to console the faithful? Is Blackburn going to wait until dinosaurs make a comeback before deciding the time to evolve is right? I’m not a fan of the franchise by I know the paying customers deserve better than this.