How a Cincinnati Bengals Super-Bowl Season Was Decimated by 1 Player

The Cincinnati Bengals entered the 2024 season with high hopes, having made it to the Super Bowl and the AFC Championship in the last two seasons that their star quarterback Joe Burrow was healthy.

After a season-ending injury in 2023, Bengals fans expected Burrow to come back and continue at the top of his game. Burrow, despite an injury that many feared would forever alter his throwing ability, managed to come back better than he ever was.

Yet, the Bengals are sitting at 4-6 and are going to need some help from other AFC teams if they want to make it into the playoffs.

Cincinnati Bengals WR Tee Higgins has handicapped the Bengals this season

While many Cincinnati fans love star wide receiver Tee Higgins for his abilities on the field and want to see him spend the rest of his career with the Bengals, there is an argument to be made that without his presence on the team, the Bengals would firmly sit in playoff position.

Before the season, NFL insider Adam Schefter predicted that Higgins would sit out multiple games if there was any semblance of an injury due to the fact that he is playing for a contract. The Bengals franchise tagged Higgins, but both sides seem to have accepted that they will not be able to pay Higgins and fellow star WR Ja’Marr Chase.

Adam Schefter and Dan Orlovsky (followed by Marcus Spears) get into it over Tee Higgins on NFL Live. 🏈📺 pic.twitter.com/WFDjf7AmJl

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) May 15, 2024

10 weeks into the season, and it seems Schefter’s prediction was accurate. Higgins missed the first two games after suffering soft-tissue injuries during practice.

The Bengals first and worst loss of the season was to the New England Patriots at home in week one. The Bengals game-planned with the idea that Higgins would be available until he injured himself on the Friday before the game, forcing the coaching staff to quickly pivot into an entirely different game plan.

That drastically neutered their offensive performance in that game. The Bengals defense only allowed 16 points despite two big turnovers, one of which was deep in their own territory. It is hard to imagine a world where the Bengals lose that game with Higgins available.

The same thing happened before the Bengals played the Philadelphia Eagles. The coaching staff was forced to quickly pivot their game plan. They did so unsuccessfully, resulting in a 37-17 loss.

It is hard to say that Higgins would’ve closed a 20-point gap, but the game was closer than the final score indicates. Higgins’ presence could’ve completely changed the outlook, but that is not a loss that can be directly chalked up to his absence.

What could the Cincinnati Bengals roster look like with Tee Higgins’ franchise-tag money allocated elsewhere?

Under a franchise tag, Higgins is the second-highest-paid player on the Bengals roster. This season, he is earning $21.8 million. Going into week 11, Higgins has only played in five games, a stretch in which the Bengals acquired three of their four wins this season.

The Bengals were one stop away from beating the Kansas City Chiefs, the Baltimore Ravens twice and the Washington Commanders. While Higgins was present for one Ravens loss and the loss to the Commanders, the Bengals have shown that they can operate at a high level without Higgins.

If Higgins’ $21.8 million salary was given to the defense line and secondary, it is hard to imagine that they wouldn’t have been able to get that extra stop.

Only two defensive free agency signings in 2024 signed contracts that have an annual salary higher than Higgins. Take a pick from every defensive free agency signing that wasn’t Christian Wilkins or Danielle Hunter, and you have a vastly improved Bengals defense.

Whether they went with one big splash and signed someone like defensive end Leonard Williams for a similar salary or an aggregate replacement with multiple signings including someone like safety Xavier McKinney along with a defensive line depth piece.

Hindsight is 20/20, but Higgins’ injury issues were no secret. If he misses the game against the Chargers, he will only have played in 62% of the snaps of his career. The Bengals knew they weren’t going to give him a long-term extension, so they let him eat up a massive portion of the cap just to sit out and cost the team games.

While it’s hard to blame Higgins as he probably wants to be out on the field twice as bad as any Bengals fan wants him there, the injuries have always been a concern. It is not Higgins’ fault that he is injured, but his injuries are directly responsible for wasting what could end up being an MVP-caliber season for Joe Burrow along with a triple-crown season for Ja’Marr Chase.

More NFL and College Football Articles from Andrew Kusleika on Gridiron Heroics:

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• Shedeur Sanders Wants Colorado Buffaloes to Give Him $10 Million

• Fans Rejoice as ESPN’s Exclusively-Streamed MNF Game is a Monumental Failure
• Star Los Angeles Rams WR Could Miss Even More Time With New Injury

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