{"id":30452,"date":"2025-05-07T07:24:22","date_gmt":"2025-05-07T07:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/30452\/"},"modified":"2025-05-07T07:24:22","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T07:24:22","slug":"geno-stone-pay-cut-with-cincinnati-bengals-in-new-contract-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/30452\/","title":{"rendered":"Geno Stone pay cut with Cincinnati Bengals in new contract explained"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"play\"<\/p>\n

Zac Taylor speaks about Cincinnati Bengals 2025 NFL draft picks video<\/p>\n

Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor speaks at a press conference after Bengals make all their picks for the 2025 NFL Draft.<\/p>\n

The Cincinnati Bengals<\/a> and Geno Stone agreed on a restructured contract that keeps the safety with the team for at least one more season.<\/p>\n

After a shaky first season with the Bengals, it was unclear if Cincinnati would cut ties with Stone. It became clear the team was planning to keep him when they opted not to sign another safety in free agency. Then, when the Bengals didn\u2019t draft a safety with any of their six picks, it all but ended the conversation about if Stone would be on the team this season.<\/p>\n

Stone was scheduled to make $6.475 million and now is set to make $4.9 million in the upcoming season, according to OverTheCap.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Geno Stone contract with Bengals<\/p>\n

The Bengals started the second phase of their voluntary offseason program on Monday and Tuesday, Stone addressed several questions about the status of his contract.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean yeah, a little,\u201d Stone admitted on if he took the request to take a pay cut personal. \u00a0\u201cBut at the end of the day, it\u2019s business.\u201dTo this point, it\u2019s unclear what the Bengals are planning to do with the money they\u2019re saving from Stone\u2019s decreased salary. Pro Bowl defensive end Trey Hendrickson<\/a> is seeking a new contract from the team and negotiations have stalled out for the time being. There\u2019s a scenario in which this move, plus moving on from linebacker Germaine Pratt could free up some money for the Bengals to throw at Hendrickson.<\/p>\n

Stone is at least hoping that\u2019s the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to do what\u2019s best for the team and if that\u2019s what gets Trey back signed, I\u2019m going to do it,\u201d Stone said.<\/p>\n

Trey Hendrickson contract situation with Bengals<\/p>\n

Hendrickson has yet to report to the Bengals\u2019 voluntary offseason program due to his ongoing contract dispute. Stone wasn\u2019t told what the team plans to do with the money they\u2019re freeing up, but hopes it helps his team.\u201cAt the end of the day, if you\u2019re taking a pay cut, they\u2019re trying to clear up space for a reason,\u201d Stone said. \u201cI don\u2019t know what they\u2019re doing, they never told me, I didn\u2019t ask. At the end of the day, they\u2019re doing what they think is best for the team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stone also provided an honest assessment of his performance last season stating he was \u201cupset\u201d with himself often last season because of his play. When the Bengals signed Stone in free agency, they were expecting more interceptions and consistent tackling than they got from him. During the 2023 season, Stone recorded seven interceptions with the Ravens.<\/p>\n

Stone believes he’ll thrive in new defensive coordinator Al Golden\u2019s system due to more simplicity, which he did early in his career. In switching to the Bengals\u2019 scheme last year, Stone cited the complexity of Cincinnati\u2019s defense as something he needed to get comfortable with and it took longer than expected.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s keeping it simple,\u201d Stone said of Golden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zac Taylor speaks about Cincinnati Bengals 2025 NFL draft picks video Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor speaks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30453,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2053],"tags":[247,265,228,227,256,2296,7,2934,6486,10802,2977,246,88,6,245,264,10803,9,266,9659],"class_list":{"0":"post-30452","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cincinnati-bengals","8":"tag-american","9":"tag-american-football","10":"tag-bengals","11":"tag-cincinnati","12":"tag-cincinnati-bengals","13":"tag-cincinnatibengals","14":"tag-football","15":"tag-geno","16":"tag-geno-stone","17":"tag-germaine","18":"tag-germaine-pratt","19":"tag-neutral","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-nfl","22":"tag-overall","23":"tag-overall-neutral","24":"tag-pratt","25":"tag-sports","26":"tag-sports-news","27":"tag-stone"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114465358982012721","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}