Tee Higgins and the Cincinnati Bengals have had a whirlwind of an offseason.
Amid a contract standoff, Higgins requested a trade earlier this offseason only to have the Cincinnati Bengals apply the franchise tag, which the 25-year-old ultimately signed.
Now, as the July 15 deadline for players tagged and the teams that tagged them to reach a long-term contract agreement having passed, Higgins will play out the 2024 season while collecting $21.8 million for his efforts.
Higgins was the only player tagged across the NFL this offseason not to sign a long-term deal with his team and there’s a strong chance that the upcoming campaign will be his final in Cincinnati.
What History Suggests About Tee Higgins’ Cincinnati Bengals Future
While the deadline to sign players to an extension is truly a soft deadline, because the two sides can always revisit contract talks the following offseason, the Bengals’ handling of tagged players through the franchise’s history is a pretty significant indicator of where this saga is heading.
As Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio points out, the Bengals have never signed a player to an extension beyond the year he was tagged.
Might Higgins be a costly exception, given that the wide receiver market has exploded this offseason following the mega-contracts signed by Justin Jefferson, Amon-Ra St. Brown, A.J. Brown, and others?
“(W)e feel like we’re a better team with him,” Bengals director of player personnel Duke Tobin told reporters in February at the annual scouting combine following the team’s decision to tag Higgins. “The reason we franchised him is because we would like to have him.
Through the first four seasons of his career, Higgins has caught 257 passes for 3,684 yards with 24 touchdowns, but, keeping him in a Bengals uniform could prove difficult with Ja’Marr Chase also in line for a new contract and Joe Burrow’s deal becoming exponentially more expensive as years pass by.
More likely, Higgins could be the most sought after free agent receiver and the latest to cash in next offseason, somewhere else.
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