Steelers Rivals on the Verge of ‘Very Ugly’ Drama.

The Pittsburgh Steelers’ route through the AFC North may become simpler shortly.

The Pittsburgh Steelers are gearing up for the regular season, and there will be plenty of headlines to follow. While everyone expected Russell Wilson and Justin Fields to steal the show this summer, it’s a wide receiver transaction that has dominated the news cycle.

But, while Pittsburgh waits for their drama to end, the Cincinnati Bengals are plunging further into it. With Ja’Marr Chase sitting out during training camp while negotiating a new contract with the Bengals, the situation in the Bengals’ wide receiver room has deteriorated further.

Cincinnati just resolved their difficulties with Tee Higgins when the veteran elected to sign his franchise tag. But Chase, who is only in his fourth year in the NFL, is seeking for a long-term contract.

The former first-round choice has already had his fifth-year option exercised, and he is theoretically under contract until the 2025 season. But he wants a deal done quickly, and one NFL insider believes things will become lot worse before they get better.

Speaking on 93.7 The Fan, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk claimed the Chase-Bengals scenario is on the cusp of erupting, which may make Cincy’s problems even worse.

“He is holding in. The Bengals are cheap. The Bengals are stubborn. The Bengals may be misplaying this,” Florio said. “They’re either gonna get this done in the next week or so, or it’s gonna blow up and become a completely ugly mess. They’ve done their best to hold it together now, but it could get very ugly if the Bengals don’t wake up and take care of this soon.”

Florio believes Chase has a $3.8 million bonus in his contract for helping during training camp, which prevented him from holding out.

Chase is the next in a running list of Bengals that have had contract disputes over several years. He follows Higgins and All-Pro safety Jesse Bates, who left in free agency to join the Atlanta Falcons.

The outcome of this is yet unknown, but the Chase situation is growing increasingly interesting. Unlike Brandon Aiyuk or CeeDee Lamb, it appears to be making less noise, but the impact is equally tremendous. Chase has three 1,000-yard seasons in three years as a professional, with 29 touchdown catches along the way. Joe Burrow has missed a significant amount of time owing to injuries.

The Bengals will want to keep their best wide receiver, but the asking price is almost definitely higher than $30 million per year. So we’ll wait and see what happens.