Tee Higgins is shining like never before in the Bengals offense, and Cincinnati is thriving as a result
Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins followed the bye week with a 148-yard performance against the Baltimore Ravens. The numbers behind his first six games show a version of Higgins that Bengals fans have never seen before.
Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins has never started a season quite like this one.
Fresh off a 148-yard performance against the Baltimore Ravens, Higgins now has 33 receptions for 571 yards and two touchdowns through six games.
Higgins’ big day in Baltimore didn’t make him the Bengals’ leading receiver; he already held that title coming out of the bye week. What it did was establish him as one of the most efficient wideouts in the entire NFL, and he’s taken a new route to find himself there.
Tee Higgins’ efficiency is top tier in the NFL
Higgins is averaging 2.83 Yards per Route Run (Y/RR), according to Pro Football Focus. That ranks fifth among 97 qualifying receivers through Week 7.
Only Zay Flowers, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Mike Evans, and Drake London sit ahead of Higgins on that leaderboard. He finds himself higher than fellow stars Puka Nacua, CeeDee Lamb, and Justin Jefferson.
This is also only the second year through Week 7 Higgins’ Y/RR average is higher than Ja’Marr Chase’s. Chase sits at a respectable 1.90 average, though it is his lowest mark through his first six games of any season he’s played.
Even with Chase’s relatively slow start, the duo’s combined 4.73 yards per route run is the second-highest mark since they joined forces in 2021. They combined for 4.96 through the first seven weeks of their first season together.
Cincinnati’s passing offense ranks sixth in EPA/dropback and third in dropback success rate. The Bengals are doing mighty fine with Higgins leading the charge for once.
Higgins is doing it like never before
The efficiency alone is impressive, but how Higgins is getting there stands out even more. The 27-year-old’s career Average Depth of Target (ADoT) is 12.7 yards. His ADoT is 15.2 right now, his highest mark through Week 7 of any season. His 17.3 yards per reception is also the highest it has been at this point of any season in his career.
This is significant from my perspective. With Joe Burrow at quarterback, the Bengals will dice up opponents short of the sticks and against underneath coverage all game long. The issue in recent years has been their ability to stretch the field and force defenses to respect the deep passing game.
Getting Chase involved in that part of the field has largely been a struggle because of how much attention he commands from opposing secondaries. Defenses know exactly who he is, and they game-plan accordingly out of pure fear.
Higgins is capitalizing off that fear and is now the Bengals’ go-to target on deep concepts. He is getting the best opportunities to win down the field, and he is not letting them go to waste. On passes of 20 yards or more, he’s averaging a whopping 15.33 yards per route run. He has caught four of nine targets for 138 yards and a touchdown on those throws. Of those nine targets, five came in contested catch situations, and he has hauled in three of them.
Unlocking Chase in the deep parts of the field is another step this offense needs to take. However, with defenses so focused on containing Chase, Higgins is doing more than fine attacking that area himself. It’s making him more efficient than he has ever been.
And with Cincinnati profiting off of that as an offense, there’s no use in doing anything different until teams give Chase more chances.
