Head coach Marvin Lewis said yesterday that he and the Bengals “never wavered” on making Andy Dalton the team’s long-term quarterback, according to Peter King of TheMMQB.com (Twitter link). Meanwhile, as Coley Harvey of ESPN.com tweets, Bengals owner Mike Smith said at yesterday’s press conference that his daughter, Katie Blackburn, negotiated the quarterback’s deal. Smith has been Cincinnati’s de facto GM for some time, but he has recently let Lewis and Blackburn handle more of the football decisions.
Here are a few more links relating to the fallout of the Dalton deal, including how it could affect other quarterbacks who are extension candidates:
- In an extended piece on the Dalton contract at TheMMQB.com, King praises the deal for being team-friendly, allowing the Bengals to evaluate their quarterback for the next two or three years — if he doesn’t eventually achieve playoff success, the club can get out of the pact fairly cheaply and draft a new QB in 2016 or 2017.
- King also notes that the pressure is on new Cincinnati offensive coordinator Hue Jackson to max out Dalton’s potential. If Dalton has success under Jackson, it could result in the former Raiders coach getting another opportunity at a head coaching job.
- After Dalton signed, Lewis texted A.J. Green encouraging him to tell his agent to get extension talks going with the club, tweets King, adding that the Bengals head coach wants to get the team’s core secured.
- While Dalton was eligible for free agency following the 2014 season, Carolina has Cam Newton locked up through 2015, so Dalton’s extension doesn’t mean the Panthers will push to get anything done with their quarterback, writes David Newton of ESPN.com. However, the ESPN scribe wonders if the recent deals for Dalton and Colin Kaepernick will help provide the parameters for Newton’s second contract.
- Alex Smith, on the other hand, is heading into 2014 on an expiring contract, but Sam Mellinger of the Kansas City Star doesn’t think Dalton’s deal means a lot for the Chiefs‘ signal-caller. As Mellinger observes, agent Tom Condon isn’t likely to let Kansas City lock up Smith at an overly team-friendly rate — in Mellinger’s view, if the Chiefs try to use the Dalton/Kaepernick framework in negotiations with Smith, it may actually hold up negotiations.