Bengals make an official call on Tee Higgins, and it will certainly stir up controversy if it backfires
Higgins cleared concussion protocol and is likely to play against the Dolphins, but should the Bengals put him out there?
Tee Higgins’ second concussion of the season held him out of the Cincinnati Bengals’ Week 15 matchup against the Baltimore Ravens.
It also had his Week 16 status up in the air despite logging a full practice on Friday. Regardless, he’s likely to play against the Miami Dolphins, per NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, after an independent neurologist cleared him to do so on Saturday.
It’s great news for Joe Burrow and the Bengals’ passing attack, but considering Higgins is coming off his second concussion in less than a month, plus the fact that Cincinnati is out of the playoff hunt, it raises an important question of whether or not Higgins should play in the first place.
Should the Bengals sit Higgins for the season?
The shortened timeline’s association with the separate concussions and the Bengals’ exit from the playoff picture had guys like Christopher Nowinski, the co-founder and CEO of Concussion & CTE Foundation, publicly advocating for Higgins to sit the rest of the year.
“Tee Higgins, great player, wish him all the best, was coming off of a concussion when he took two bad hits to the head with his head slamming off the turf,” Nowinski said. “On one of them, he actually grabs his head like it really hurts, which is a sign of concussion, but doesn’t always mean someone has concussion. He was assessed both times and returned to the game, finished the game. After the game, he was asked by reporters, did you ever think about not finishing the game? And he said, No. And they said, why? And he said, ‘I’m a team-first guy you know me, my team needed me, and I felt like they did, so I went out there and played.’
“So when you say you’re a team first guy and your team needed you, that means you’re not a me-first guy, and that’s basically an admission that he had a concussion.”
Higgins’ response, stating he’s a “team-first guy” and his willingness to put his body on the line, comes as no surprise. It’s simply how these guys are wired. If they can play, they will unless someone stops them.
So, with that being said, should the Bengals shut Higgins down for the rest of the year? On top of not having a horse in the playoff race, Higgins doesn’t have any regular season contract incentives to hit. Ironically enough, the incentives he has for 2025 are strictly tied to the playoffs. So, it’s not like he needs the stats to hit any bonus thresholds or anything like that.
Another concussion could do long-term harm. Sure, it’s a different conversation if the Bengals’ season still had relevance or Higgins had incentives to hit. But he doesn’t, and it should prompt the Bengals to think long and hard when it comes to managing one of their stars.
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