When is $40 million a steal?
According to Bengals defensive end Carlos Dunlap, it’s when you sign him for that amount of money over the life of a five-year contract extension. During a conference call following the official announcement of the extension on Tuesday, Dunlap said that he thinks the Bengals “got a steal” because there are bigger things to come for both him and the team.
Dunlap also said that he hoped the bigger things come alongside Michael Johnson. His fellow defensive end didn’t get a long-term deal from the Bengals and can’t sign one until after the season, something that may be tough for the Bengals to swing after extending Dunlap if they also want to extend defensive tackle Geno Atkins. Dunlap hopes that isn’t the case and told Johnson as much.
“He was excited for me. He told me congratulations,” Dunlap said, via Bengals.com. “I told him, ‘I’m here for the long haul. Hopefully we can get you and Geno here for the long haul, too. If not, we have one more year to reach all our goals and me and you both get to Hawaii with Geno.’”
Should that happen, the Bengals should have a defense capable of getting them a playoff win for the first time since 1990. They’d almost certainly be saying goodbye to Johnson if that happened, but no one ever said ending droughts of that length came without sacrifices.