Bengals TE Irv Smith Jr. can cash in with a career year
In his career, tight end Irv Smith Jr. has produced exactly 900 yards and 10 touchdowns, if you include both regular season and postseason games. This has all come in 40 career games across three seasons.For Smith to match that production in just one year would be amazing not only for the Cincinnati Bengals, and […]
In his career, tight end Irv Smith Jr. has produced exactly 900 yards and 10 touchdowns, if you include both regular season and postseason games. This has all come in 40 career games across three seasons.
For Smith to match that production in just one year would be amazing not only for the Cincinnati Bengals, and obviously for himself.
Smith signed an extremely modest one-year deal with Cincinnati this offseason to become the team's newest starter at the position. A full season of playing time will net him $1.75 million, but that number can rise if his stats do the same.
Ari Meirov of The 33rd Team broke down contract incentives for recently signed players, and revealed just how Smith can turn that $1.75 million into a cool $2 million. But the task will be great.
Irv Smith Jr.'s incentives for 2023 season
- 700 or more yards receiving: $125,000
- 9 or more receiving touchdowns: $125,000
For context, Smith's best statistical NFL season came in 2020, when he put up 365 receiving yards and five touchdowns on 30 receptions that came in 13 games played. Smith wound up missing the entire next season due to injury, which ultimately determine how his time in Minnesota would come to an end after 2022.
700 yards and nine touchdowns in one season for Smith would not only be a fantastic outlier, it would likely lead to another accolade.
The five tight ends to earn Pro Bowl status last season were Travis Kelce, Mark Andrews, George Kittle, Dawson Knox, and TJ Hockenson, whom the Vikings traded for to essentially replace Smith in the middle of last season. These five averaged 876 yards and eight touchdowns last year, and if you remove Kelce's eye-popping numbers of 1,338 yards and 12 touchdowns, those averages drop to 761 yards and seven touchdowns.
In essence, if Smith puts up Pro Bowl numbers, he'll get an extra $250k.
The Bengals would be more than happy to hand Smith a couple extra checks if he shows out like never before. There have only been six tight ends in franchise history who have ever broken the 700-yard mark in a single year, and the only one to do so in this century was Jermaine Gresham when he put up 737 in 2012. Nine touchdowns has been even more uncommon as Tyler Eifert (13) and Rodney Holman (9) have been able to achieve that.
Speaking of Eifert, ever since his 2015 season when he racked up 615 yards and those 13 scores, the Bengals haven't had a tight end break the 500 yard mark for a season. C.J. Uzomah came close in 2021 with 493, and Hayden Hurst could've gotten more than 413 last year had he not missed three games.
Smith's dream season seems very unlikely given both the history of this team, and his health, but it would be a resounding win-win for both sides.
Featured image via Peter van den Berg-USA TODAY Sports
