Tee Higgins reportedly obtained't value extension with Bengals earlier than deadline, will almost definitely be free agent in 2025 – Yahoo
The Tee Higgins contract saga has reportedly reached its conclusion. For the 2024 season, at the least.
Per NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, Higgins and the Cincinnati Bengals would perhaps also not attain settlement on a protracted-time period extension earlier than Monday’s deadline to enact so. Which intention that the fifth-300 and sixty five days extensive receiver will play the upcoming season on the franchise tag and switch into a free agent in 2025 — unless, useless to narrate, the Bengals intention one other franchise tag on him next offseason.
That is an not really sigh of affairs given the escalations built into the collective bargaining settlement for gamers franchise tagged multiple cases. Higgins is due $21.8 on the tag in 2024. Have been the Bengals to tag him again in 2025, he’d be due a minimum 20% enhance over his $21.8 million salary, which adds as much as roughly $26.2 million.
But for the 2024 season, Higgins’ companies and products are gain in Cincinnati. He’s signed the franchise tag that dwarfs the moderate annual value of his four-300 and sixty five days rookie contract that’s paid him $25.9 million since he joined the Bengals as a 2nd-spherical draft pick in 2020.
That, at the least, is apt news for a Bengals team that’s attempting to bounce motivate from a down season where they skipped over the playoffs on the heels of consecutive journeys to the AFC championship game, one among which resulted in a Gigantic Bowl berth. The 2024 campaign will almost definitely be a high-stakes season for every the Bengals and Higgins.
Higgins has been the 2nd choice in a single among football’s very most piquant extensive receiver tandems whereas taking half in alongside game-breaking All-Skilled Ja’Marr Race. He’s additionally coming off the worst season of his profession, an injury-riddled campaign that noticed your whole Bengals offense rob multiple steps motivate as quarterback Joe Burrow struggled with injuries earlier than his season ended with a wrist injury that required surgical draw.
After tallying at the least 906 yards and six touchdowns in every of his first three NFL seasons, Higgins posted 42 catches for 656 yards and five touchdowns whereas taking half in in 12 video games in 2023. The Bengals are depending on a bounce-motivate campaign return to title rivalry, and Higgins is a necessary phase of that equation. If Higgins and the Bengals to come to assemble, Higgins will almost definitely be in line for a necessary long-time period payday with some suitors doubtlessly eyeing him as a No. 1 receiving target.
The Bengals, clearly, would earnings from securing Higgins and Race long-time period as Burrow’s high weapons. But Race will almost definitely be due a protracted-time period extension at the cease of his rookie deal and the clear high priority for the entrance office. In a league where the contract marketplace for extensive receivers continues to skyrocket, the possibilities of signing Higgins to a protracted-time period contract next offseason project as even more complicated in Cincinnati.
