In taking a moment to catch our breath after the Receiver Market Explosion of 2022—which began in earnest last March when the Raiders traded Davante Adams for first- and second-round picks, and ended in July when the 49ers signed Deebo Samuel to a three-year extension worth $71,550,000—it’s fair to wonder what might happen for the next crop of receivers.
Specifically, that’s the financial futures of the Bengals’ Ja’Marr Chase and the Vikings’ Justin Jefferson. The two are younger than—and possibly better than—any of the receivers who dominated this offseason. If receiver market behavior mirrors that of most other robust positional markets, we’ll have a game of AAV (average annual value) leapfrog, with each deal slightly eclipsing the last.