Tag: Tee Higgins

Patriots insider weighs in on team’s chances of signing Tee Higgins

Will the Patriots sign Tee Higgins in the offseason? One insider expects them to offer “the moon” for the Bengals’ wideout.

The New England Patriots need to make a splash this offseason in an effort to build around quarterback Drake Maye.

The Athletic’s Chad Graff offered his view on what New England could do in this regard. He believes the Patriots will aggressively go after Cincinnati Bengals star wide receiver Tee Higgins.

Higgins has battled through injuries this season but has still managed to have a productive year. He has 45 catches for 581 yards and five touchdowns to this point. He has 302 catches for 4,265 yards and 29 touchdowns in his career.

When responding to a question, Graff wrote:

Here’s an easy guess simply from reading the tea leaves: The Patriots are going to be all in on Tee Higgins. They’ve shown an interest in established receivers, and Higgins is the best free agent. I expect them to offer him the moon. The question is whether he says yes or no.

The Patriots could certainly use a player like Higgins, as he would give them an explosive veteran playmaker at one of their greatest positions of need.

They are projected to have the most cap space next year, which means they’ll have the money if they want to make a splash.

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Will Bengals fumble problem 31 other teams would love to have?

The Bengals can’t possibly mess this up, right? Right?

The Cincinnati Bengals have a top-five quarterback and two No. 1 wideouts who want to stay with the team long-term.

Talk about a problem 31 other teams would love to have at any point in time.

Surely, this is a layup at the rim, right? A chipshot field goal from close range? Joe Burrow wants the Bengals to keep Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins on extensions.

Chase wants to be back. And Higgins does too—that much we can discern from his parting ways with agent David Mulugheta and hiring the same reps as Chase.

The Bengals don’t even have to negotiate with different agencies now.

That doesn’t mean the Bengals will get a discount. This isn’t an extend one, get the other one half-off sort of thing. But Higgins going away from Mulugheta, who would only get him a top-of-market deal outside the Bengals, says it all.

The timing of Burrow putting pressure on the front office and Chase putting pressure on the front office isn’t an accident.

On paper, there’s no issue here. The Bengals are projected to have nearly $60 million in free cap space next offseason before any tough cuts conversations like Sheldon Rankins and Sam Hubbard, among others. And oftentimes, extensions can actually lower cap hits.

It’s not like other non-Trey Hendrickson names have earned big extensions because the team has drafted and coached so poorly. It’s not like Jessie Bates stayed (as he should have) and ate a big chunk of cap. There’s…not really anybody else left to pay, anyway.

Again, on paper, pay the Big 3, get at least a new defensive coaching staff in the building, draft well, add a few free agents to the mix, and field a league-average defense. That Big 3 should do the rest.

Of course, the Bengals will still have to leave their comfort zone when it comes to contract structure and guarantees while giving out fair market price to top stars.

But a (99 percent likely) playoff miss during a Burrow MVP year—just before lease negotiations get serious—should have a way of encouraging the front office to do whatever it takes.

The players involved have apparently already met the Bengals halfway on this. Now, it’s up to the team to do the rest. And if not…

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Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins contract sagas with Bengals just took a turn

What the Bengals stars want couldn’t be more obvious.

At this point, the writing on the wall for the Cincinnati Bengals is pretty hard to miss.

The ball’s in the team’s court when it comes to keeping Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins.

Joe Burrow wants it. And so, too, do Chase and Higgins, clearly.

Higgins just parted ways with agent David Mulugheta. And now, just a day later, Kelsey Conway of the Cincinnati Enquirer reported that Higgins’ new reps is Rocky Arceneaux of Alliance Sports Management.

Caitlin Aoki and Arceneaux rep Chase.

It doesn’t get much more obvious than this. Out goes Mulugheta, an agent the Bengals have a terrible history with, most recently through Jessie Bates. In are heavyweight reps the team has worked with in the past and will when it comes to Chase already next offseason.

The situation won’t do the Bengals any favors financially, not after the team gave itself a self-inflicted wound by not extending Chase last summer. But it should make the logistics a little easier — and both guys clearly want what the franchise quarterback wants.

All the Bengals have to do is provide the cash, with the proper structure, and all is well. What the players want — and what fans want — couldn’t be clearer.

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Ja’Marr Chase just applied pressure on Bengals about Tee Higgins, too

The stars seem to be aligning for Burrow, Chase and Higgins.

Feel free to add Ja’Marr Chase to the list of players now publicly applying pressure on the Cincinnati Bengals about Tee Higgins.

Naturally, Chase was asked about the topic during his weekly presser and kept the same vibe as Joe Burrow before him.

“Tee deserves to be here. He wants to be here,” Chase said, according to Fox 19’s Jeremy Rauch. “It’s all about how they want to play it.”

Chase saying this publicly is a big deal, as it follows up on Burrow’s first message to the front office — and the second.

Also, considering he’s going to seek a market-resetting extension this offseason, too, Chase’s prior descriptions of this being like “chess” for the Bengals front office are apt.

Meanwhile, Higgins has parted ways with his agent and picked up the same agent as Chase.

The Bengals can and will have the cap space to keep both wideouts this offseason, especially with some careful structuring. With the pressure applied and the state of the roster otherwise, it might just be the play.

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One AFC team could apparently be ready to offer Tee Higgins ‘the moon’

The Bengals have a tall task ahead of them when it comes to Tee Higgins.

The pressure on the Cincinnati Bengals when it comes to Tee Higgins isn’t just coming from inside the building.

It should go without saying, but plenty of teams around the NFL have Higgins on some sort of 2025 NFL free agency big board.

One of those might just be the New England Patriots, as Chad Graff of The Athletic noted in a recent mailbag.

“The Patriots are going to be all in on Tee Higgins,” Graff wrote. “They’ve shown an interest in established receivers, and Higgins is the best free agent. I expect them to offer him the moon. The question is whether he says yes or no.”

That’s what the Bengals have to contend with in the wake of Joe Burrow applying pressure about Higgins on the front office multiple times. Ja’Marr Chase has now down the same.

The mailbag mentioning the Patriots’ interest came before word broke that Higgins moved on from his agent, though. If part of the reason for the split was due to an inability to get a deal done with the Bengals, there’s an outside chance that teams like the Patriots will never get a chance.

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Is Tee Higgins about to pull a T.J. Watt with the Bengals?

Bengals fans would like this, to say the least.

Could Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins emulate Pittsburgh Steelers star T.J. Watt soon?

A few years ago, Watt overruled his own agents and went to Steelers brass and agreed to his long-term extension, while reps thought they might be able to get more money out of the situation.

One line of thinking suggests Higgins might be on his way to doing something similar, in a sense. Word finally went public this week that he parted ways with NFL agent David Mulugheta.

That news came right after Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow publicly put pressure on the Bengals front office about getting a Higgins extension done — multiple times.

Granted, Watt was still signing a deal that made him the NFL’s highest-paid defensive player and the Steelers were breaking normal contractual behavior in terms of guarantees. Higgins might not get either of those things if he re-ups with the Bengals.

Onlookers will have to remain in wait-and-see mode when it comes to Higgins. But the fact this is even a conversation speaks to how dramatically things have changed around his possible long-term status with the Bengals.

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Joe Burrow puts even more pressure on Bengals about Tee Higgins

Something has changed, right? Joe Burrow brings up Tee Higgins’ contract again.

Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow simply isn’t letting up on the pressure directed at his front office over Tee Higgins.

A few days removed from shocking by saying he’s confident the Bengals would get Tee Higgins extended for 2025, Burrow did it again ahead of Week 15.

There, Burrow dropped the following when asked how he would feel if the team didn’t get Higgins back: “I’d be very disappointed in that…Tee is a need.”

Now tack on the fact that on the same day, a report confirmed that Higgins has parted ways with his agent.

While the Bengals would need to perform some cap gymnastics to re-sign Higgins and give Ja’Marr Chase his market-resetting deal, it’s pretty hard to say the timing of all this is a coincidence.

With Burrow recently talking about “core guys” to the team’s long-term future, to top it all off, it seems like the Higgins conversations have taken a turn.

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Bengals WR Tee Higgins parts ways with agent amid contract saga

A huge development on the Bengals, Tee Higgins front.

The rumors are indeed true — Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins has parted ways with NFL agent David Mulugheta.

Kelsey Conway of the Cincinnati Enquirer reported the news on Wednesday.

It’s a bombshell of a report following up on rumors earlier the same day that suggested as much. And as we noted there, a change in representation could mean Higgins takes a new approach to handling a possible contract extension with the Bengals.

Currently under the franchise tag, Higgins can’t sign an extension with the Bengals until after the season. But he’s free to do so well before free agency opens next spring.

The move doesn’t feel like a coincidence, at least. Days earlier, Joe Burrow broke out of his usual conservative shell to say he’s confident Higgins will be back next year, which led to speculation he was publicly putting pressure on the front office to get something done.

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Tee Higgins’ Bengals contract saga gets more interesting with insider rumor

This new detail from an insider makes the Bengals-Tee Higgins situation more interesting.

The saga between the Cincinnati Bengals and Tee Higgins is quickly adding new layers.

After Week 14, Joe Burrow stunned many by proclaiming that he’s confident Higgins will be back with the team next year. It was safe to view that as him applying very public pressure on the front office (or he knows something everyone else doesn’t).

A few days later, ESPN’s Dan Graziano tacked on a new detail about something very notable — Higgins might be changing agents:

There are rumblings that Higgins is pondering an agent change (he’s no longer listed with his previous agent on the official NFLPA site, but he’s also not yet listed with a new one), which sometimes indicates a change in the player’s negotiating stance. And Burrow’s confidence shouldn’t be ignored completely, as he’s not the type to just say things like that off the cuff. I don’t know how this shakes out. I still think it makes more sense for the Bengals to pay Chase, even if that means letting Higgins walk. But the longer it goes without a new deal for Chase, the more expensive the price tag gets.

What does a possible agent change mean for Higgins? Anything?

As Graziano notes, sometimes these things happen due to a change in a “negotiating stance.” With Higgins coming off a franchise tag, there’s potentially a chance he wants to try a new track after talks last offseason didn’t work out.

It’s all speculation, of course. Since Higgins is on the franchise tag, the Bengals aren’t permitted to sign him to an extension until after the season ends.

But Burrow’s comments and rumors of a possible agent change? The old adage about smoke and fire comes to mind. The Higgins saga sure feels like it’s taking a turn in an unexpected direction.

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Bengals lose Tee Higgins to NFC in free-agency projections

Can the Bengals keep NFC teams away from Tee Higgins?

With the Cincinnati Bengals’ season approaching its end and the playoff picture becoming clearer with only four weeks remaining in the regular season, Bleacher Report took a look at some of the biggest weaknesses each team is going to be looking to fix over the offseason.

Although there has been talk from Joe Burrow recently about how he believes the team will be able to keep Tee Higgins around, the Bleacher Report NFL scouting department might not be as confident in that and believes that the Carolina Panthers should make a run at the Bengals pass catcher in free agency.

Here’s what the article said about the Panthers and why Higgins would be a fit:

Bryce Young has played well enough recently to earn a chance at remaining the starting quarterback in Carolina next season, but the offense could use some extra weapons for Young to throw to.

Higgins will likely be the top wide receiver in free agency since he’ll be just 26 years old in January and has No. 1 receiver potential. Meanwhile, the front office is projected to have about $33.6 million of cap space in the offseason, per Over The Cap, to help make this pairing happen.

At this point, all Bengals fans can do is sit back and wait to see what happens with the receiver, but it seems that any outcome is possible at this point.

While dealing with some injuries this season, Higgins has been able to catch 45 passes for 581 yards and five touchdowns in just eight games, far outpacing his 42 catches for 656 yards and five scores he had in 2023.

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