Bengals’ Katie Blackburn talks about Joe Burrow’s upcoming extension

Cincinnati Bengals executive vice president Katie Blackburn inevitably got asked about Joe Burrow’s upcoming extension at the NFL spring meetings.

As expected, Blackburn didn’t have much to say on the matter beyond suggesting both parties have been sworn to secrecy.

“I don’t know the pace but we hope that there’s something that can get done,” Blackburn said, according to Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com. “We sort of said we won’t talk about it much until there’s something to talk about.”

She added this, per the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Kelsey Conway: “At the end of the day, it’s what Joe wants. I think Joe’s got to be happy, and we’ve got to be happy. And hopefully, we can be happy together.”

None of the comments fall under the unexpected column, meaning there isn’t a lot of value in reading further into them than face value.

More telling is the Bengals left their comfort zone on the Orlando Brown contract and slightly pushed bigger cap hits to future years on recent signings, suggesting they’re prepping for big extensions. A Burrow deal might not come until at least April 1, though, provided they want to push the big escrow hit to 2024.

Keep in mind Ja’Marr Chase has hinted Burrow’s extension will help the team keep the weapons around him, too.

While the quotes here are new, there’s little reason not to expect the extension to happen at some point between April and the season opener.