Tee Higgins Makes Statement To Bengals Doubters As Team Puts Faith In Jake Browning

 The Bengals' top offensive stars aren't listening to any doubters about the 2025 season this early on. Cincinnati is 2-0 on the season and is hoping to get Joe Burrow back from his turf toe injury later on in December.

Tee Higgins, Ja'Marr Chase, and the rest of the team have to play around a .500 level with Jake Browning to make things worthy of a Burrow return in Week 16 or beyond. Higgins doesn't want to hear anyone counting Cincinnati out yet.

"Don't write us off just yet," Higgins said on Thursday. "Obviously, we all know what Jake can do. We've seen what he can do. So we just got to go out there and just keep being us. Keep playing Bengals football and the rest will settle itself."

Higgins just scored his first touchdown of the season from a Browning deep pass on Sunday.

It involved a large chunk of yards after the catch, which Cincinnati will have to keep capitalizing on, given Browning's 6.1 air yards per attempt in 2023 (would've been the lowest in the NFL over the full season) and 9% sack rate.

"It's an opinion," Chase said about the outside doubt after Burrow's injury. "I mean, everybody has an opinion. We really don't care. It's outside noise. We gotta worry about what's in our locker room. Control what we can control, and that's how we're gonna win games."

Cincinnati currently ranks tied for last among all teams in big plays so far (six total, five through the air of 20-plus yards and one on the ground of 10-plus yards).

Now, that's just two games, but Cincinnati can't maintain this 2-0 momentum if it's only posting three big plays per game.

"We just believe in what our foundation is and we just believe in us as a whole, as a team," Higgins said. "So long as we keep together as a team, keep putting our best foot forward, play complementary football, we'll be alright."