Report: Bengals are trying to sign Tee Higgins long term

[SunsetBengal]

(02-29-2024, 02:18 AM)Isaac Curtis: The Real #85 Wrote: Where do you get December from? 

I do think you are right about needing a NT at camp. But we can always bring Tupou back. Davis & Maxwell are both under contract. Tufele is signed and can play some nose.

To be frank, I think he'll be back well before December. Last time, he tore his quad on 10/11/20. Week 5. He played 48 snaps week 1 in 2021, 9/12. That's 11 months. He was in camp, practicing in August. 10 months. He played in the first pre-season game.

That would be fantastic if he were able to defy the odds for a second time, with pretty much the same injury.  However, every incident is unique in it's own way and might present complications that weren't present the first time he rehabbed a similar injury.  Also worth mentioning that he's now three years older, and has put his body through a lot of battles between then and now, which also might cause him to need the traditional amount of recovery time.

However, he's currently not even under contract.  There are no guarantees that his agent will be willing to have Reader to sign for a "let's see how this rehab goes" type of contract.  The Bengals were needing to think about restocking the NT shelf even before DJ went down with another catastrophic injury, as the guys underneath of him are all pretty much just "bodies".

Bottom line is that if the Bengals are going to improve upon the disastrous year they had in defending the run, they need a serious NT on the roster for training camp.  You know that all three of the teams in our division love to run the ball, right?