The Cincinnati Bengals have until the end of the week to decide on defensive end Myles Murphy’s fifth-year option. Director of player personnel Duke Tobin is leaving the door open on the matter, but the clock is ticking fast.

The Cincinnati Bengals have until Saturday, May 2 to exercise the fifth-year option of defensive end Myles Murphy’s contract. Giving the green light would mean Murphy will be under contract through the 2027 season at a guaranteed salary of $14.475 million.Will the Bengals pull the lever? Director of player personnel Duke Tobin left it up for debate during his first-ever post-NFL Draft press conference Monday afternoon.

“That’s coming up this week,” Tobin said. “And now that the draft’s over, we’ll look and see what kind of costs we can layer in next year and what we can and can’t do there. It’ll be a financial decision, primarily, one way or the other, but he is a guy that we’re counting on, not only this year, we’d like a long term relationship with him, but I don’t know whether that comes together.“Again. We’re at the top of the league in spending right now,” Tobin continued. “And so we’re going to have to make it work and we’ll see what we do with that. But that’ll be a decision we make as we dive into this week, looking at next year, and we’ve got some cap ramifications there too with what we’ve done.”

Murphy was Cincinnati’s first-round pick from the 2023 draft. He was a rotational player during the first two years of his career, and finally became a starter in 2025. He amassed 41 pressures and 5.5 sacks as a third-year player, with most of that production occurring in the back-half of the season.Still just 24 years old, Murphy is ascending at the right time for both himself and the Bengals. Had he not put together that production in the final two months of last year, there would significant questions as to whether or not the fifth-year option would be a smart move. There should be more confidence in Murphy being worth the nearly $15 million next season. Tobin saying the decision will be primarily a “financial decision” speaks to Murphy’s progression has been noticed, but his overall answer indicates it will be a tough choice to make.

Cincinnati is, for what feels like the first time ever, really low on salary cap space exiting the draft. There’s $7,497,125 before signing the rookie draft class, and $5,105,699 will remain afterwards thanks to the offseason top-51 rule in which only the most expensive 51 cap hits are counted against the cap before the regular season. Murphy’s fifth-year option would not impact any of that remaining space, but it would cut into the $58,928,143 in space the Bengals are projected to have next year according to OverTheCap.com. The issue with that number is it only counts for 28 players currently under contract for 2027. That number will rise to about 45 following the signings of the drafted and undrafted rookies, but that will then reduce the projected cap space. Their projected effective cap space, which fills out remaining roster spots to 53 with minimum salaries, is listed at $37,538,143. Take away $14.475 million with Murphy’s fifth-year option, and Cincy’s cap space would be admittedly smaller than it usually is looking a year ahead of time.

I think Murphy’s option will be exercised. He’s on track to being a successful first-round pick, and the cost of a starting veteran EDGE in the NFL is now much higher than what Murphy’s salary would be next year.If the Bengals decline the option, the most likely reason is they want to hammer out a full-blown contract extension with Murphy and would look for a smaller cap hit in 2027. Tobin referred to him as a player they want a long-term relationship with. Getting it done this offseason would be unexpected considering Murphy only just began bearing fruit, but it could end up saving them money in the long run.