Bengals Roster Breakdown: Tee Higgins is ready to have the best contract year you'll ever see

Throughout the summer leading up to the regular season, we will go through the entire 2024 Cincinnati Bengals roster. Every single day until the season opener against the New England Patriots, we will break down a player on the roster including his background, contract status, and path towards making the team.Today, we finally arrive at […]

John Sheeran — Cincinnati Bengals News Writer
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Tee Higgins
© Sam Greene/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK

Throughout the summer leading up to the regular season, we will go through the entire 2024 Cincinnati Bengals roster. Every single day until the season opener against the New England Patriots, we will break down a player on the roster including his background, contract status, and path towards making the team.

Today, we finally arrive at the three pillars of the Bengals' offense. To start, wide receiver Tee Higgins comes into focus. The last 12 months have not gone according to plan for one of the Bengals' best draft picks in recent memory. Now that he's entering his second consecutive contract year, Higgins appears to be all the way locked in. That's not what any opposing cornerback wants to hear.

Tee Higgins

  • Age: 25
  • Year: 5th
  • Position: Wide receiver
  • College: Clemson 
  • Previous Teams: None
  • Jersey Number: 5

Higgins was drafted by the Bengals with the 33rd overall pick in the second round of the 2020 NFL Draft. He spent three years at Clemson and played all three seasons starting with 13 games as a freshman in 2017. Two dominant performances late in the season primed him to start as a sophomore in 2018. He led the Tigers in receptions (59) and touchdowns (12) along with 936 yards and earned Second Team All-ACC honors en route to a National Championship victory over Alabama. He was named First Team All-ACC in his final year in 2019 after a leap in production with 59 receptions for a team-high 1,167 yards and 13 touchdowns. Clemson would make it back to the title game, but Higgins would watch Joe Burrow and Ja'Marr Chase take the trophy for LSU this time.

Burrow and Higgins shined in that last game, and the two ended up being the Bengals' first two selections in the 2020 Draft. It took exactly one week for the team to start the rookie Higgins over John Ross for the rest of the 2020 season. Higgins ended up leading the team in receiving yards (908) and touchdowns (six) while finishing second in receptions (67). Only four other rookie receivers in Bengals history posted more yards than him, and he became the eighth in team history with multiple 100-yard games.

After falling just short of 1,000 yards as a rookie, Higgins crossed that landmark in both 2021 and 2022 and caught exactly 74 passes in each season despite minor injuries popping up and the arrival and immediate domination of Chase. Higgins thrived as the 1B option in Cincinnati's passing game, and showed out during each postseason run. He posted 103 yards in the 2021 AFC Championship game before dropping 100 yards and two touchdowns in the Super Bowl. His 75-yard score was the longest play from scrimmage in franchise postseason history. A year later, Higgins caught Burrow's only touchdown in the AFC Championship game along with a team-high 83 receiving yards.

Three years of high-quality play confirmed Higgins' status as a foundational piece of Cincinnati's roster. The Bengals soon began negotiations to extend his contract, but both sides quickly realized they were far apart in the 2023 offseason. He entered a contract year with great uncertainty, and the season that followed was disappointing from the jump. He started off out of sync during the first five games with just one good performance to hang his hat on. He started to turn things around after the Week 7 bye with two strong outings, but a strained hamstring took him out for the next three weeks. His hammy got him again after two more great games, forcing him to miss the season finale for a total of five games missed due to injury.

The Bengals didn't seem to bother negotiating with Higgins this offseason as they placed the franchise tag on him immediately. Higgins would request a trade out of frustration right before free agency began, and the request popped up again right before the Draft. As expected, the Bengals didn't budge. Following mandatory minicamp, he signed his franchise tender to put an end to all the noise surrounding his name and future in question.  

Contract details

Higgins signed his franchise tag worth $21.816 million for this year. His salary is fully guaranteed, and his cap number is the exact same.

Roster outlook

With all the drama behind him, Higgins put together one of the most impressive training camps for a Bengals player in recent memory. There wasn't a day on the practice field where he didn't look like the most dominant player out there. Chase holding-in from the sidelines helped, but Higgins showed in every possible way that he's on a mission this season. 

Signing the franchise tag a month ahead of camp allowed Higgins to go all in on ensuring he has the best possible season ahead of free agency. Soft-tissue Injuries have been his only weakness in the past, so prepping his body through a grueling August should have him prepared to play a full season once again.

If this is the last year Higgins has in Cincinnati, he's done everything to make it a great one.

Projected role: Starting wide receiver

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