Field Gulls
The contract may be an indicator of Fant’s trade market value.
The Seattle Seahawks made the ‘cap casualty’ decision (as explained by John Schneider) to move on from starting tight end Noah Fant prior to the start of training camp. Fant didn’t take too long to find a new team, agreeing to a one-year contract with the Cincinnati Bengals.
Fant was due to have a $13.41 million cap charge in the final year of his two-year deal with the Seahawks, including $8.49 million in non-guaranteed salary. While the Seahawks opened up $8.91 million in cap room, Seattle also absorbed a dead cap hit of $4.5 million due to his prorated signing bonus.
So how much is Fant’s Bengals contract? ESPN’s Field Yates has the details.
Certainly not the veterans minimum but not a hefty deal, either. It sounds like the maximum value is based on incentives that would bring him up to north of $4 million. His maximum value is still less than half of the salary he was scheduled to make with the Seahawks in 2025.
I think it’s safe to say that while there was enough interest in Fant to garner meetings with three teams (Bengals, Miami Dolphins, and New Orleans Saints), a trade market for Fant was a non-starter at his salary, as evidenced by how much Cincinnati is paying him.
Regardless, good luck to Noah with the Bengals, who will presumably split TE targets with Mike Gesicki, while the Seahawks turns to A.J. Barner and rookie Elijah Arroyo as their top two at the position.
