To no surprise, the Bengals used the franchise tag on wideout Tee Higgins and in doing so prevented him from reaching free agency. He could still be playing on a new team by the start of the 2024 season, though. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports Higgins has requested a trade.
This is complicated territory for the Bengals, who may well be renting Higgins via the tag. Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow extension and its plans for a Ja’Marr Chase payday — its top WR priority — may make a Higgins extension untenable. But the team carved out enough cap space for a Higgins tag this year. The team’s No. 2 wideout may not be on board with the team’s plan, one that would delay his long-term payday by a year.
The Bengals saw their hopes at breaking through for a Super Bowl title dashed when Burrow went down in November. A Higgins tag would offer a mulligan of sorts, keeping the Burrow-Chase-Higgins window open for one more year. Player personnel director Duke Tobin, who shot down Higgins trade rumors at the 2023 combine, recently said a tag-and-trade scenario was unlikely.
“The message is we really like Tee and we’re a better team with Tee. In terms of our intentions and answering hypotheticals, I won’t get into that,” Tobin said, via the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Charlie Goldsmith. “We feel like we’re a better team with him. The reason we franchised him is we’d like to have him.”
Tag rentals have been going on since the NFL introduced the player-retention tool in 1993, and standout wide receivers regularly need to wait until Year 5 for a payday. CeeDee Lamb and Justin Jefferson are in this boat, due to being first-round picks in 2020, and Chase will probably join them. The Bengals picking up Chase’s fifth-year option can allow them to table extension talks until 2025.
Cincinnati dealing Higgins would hurt its chances of winning a championship this year, though the receiver market losing Mike Evans (re-signed) or Michael Pittman Jr. (tagged) could make offers for the Clemson alum tempting. Higgins would certainly fetch a strong haul for the Bengals, and Cincy tagging Higgins so early could have been interpreted as a way for the team to see what a trade would bring back. But this is an old-school organization that typically does not give in on these fronts. It will be interesting to see if any traction develops here.
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