Tee’s market price

[Whacked]

Yikes.

https://www.cincyjungle.com/2025/1/24/24350673/tee-higgins-projected-to-get-112-million-deal-according-to-pro-football-focus

Tee Higgins projected to get $112 million deal, according to Pro Football Focus

Tee Higgins may want to stay in Cincinnati, but based on Pro Football Focus’ projected contract, his price tag might be out of the Bengals’ range.

The football data site predicts that Higgins, the top free agent of the 2025 offseason, will get a deal worth $112 over four years with $67.5 million guaranteed. That comes out to $28 million per year.

Even though he missed five games due to injury, Higgins, still just 26 years old, finished as PFF’s eighth best receiver overall with a season grade of 88.2. He “consistently produced at a high level”, according to PFF’s free agency profile of the receiver.

The question is, will the Bengals value Higgins as much as PFF does? And will they pay him like the elite receiver he is when the team has another elite receiver (Ja’Marr Chase) to pay as well as an elite pass rusher (Trey Hendrickson) to pay at some point?

[CJD]

It's a lot of money, but I'd give it to him.

[*jason*]

Yeah. They can't afford him. They have to set money back for CTB, Myles Murphy, and the like.

Pay the man.

[J24]

That's a steal of a deal; I would do that in a heartbeat!

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

Reminder that the Bengals' previous offers to him (back in the '22-'23 offseason) never even reached $20m/yr and that was when he was coming off back-to-back 1k seasons.

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$28m/yr is way too much for our #2 WR, and WAY too much for our #2 WR who has troubles staying on the field by paying him as currently the 8th highest paid WR in the league.

Also that would put us around $66m/yr just for two WRs.

[phil413]

(01-25-2025, 12:27 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Reminder that the Bengals' previous offers to him (back in the '22-'23 offseason) never even reached $20m/yr and that was when he was coming off back-to-back 1k seasons.

- - - - - -

$28m/yr is way too much for our #2 WR, and WAY too much for our #2 WR who has troubles staying on the field by paying him as currently the 8th highest paid WR in the league.

Also that would put us around $66m/yr just for two WRs.

Yeah no I'm back and forth but it's hard to justify the price given the history, ideally a tag and trade is the fix if things aren't too messy already. Let him pick a few teams l, get offers and at least get a 2nd now instead of a possible 3rd (if they don't offset it with a signing).  

[lone bengal]

(01-24-2025, 11:52 PM)jason Wrote: Yeah. They can't afford him. They have to set money back for CTB, Myles Murphy, and the like.

Pay the man.

Basically where i’m at we have so few players worth extending because are drafts have been so horrific. The injuries scare me but I can’t stomach wasting another year of Burrows prime and taking another step back roster wise with losing more young stars in there prime like Bates. Plus you lose Higgins now we have to spend a high pick on a WR when we have other glaring roster needs. Rather role with a new D we just need a non horrible defense with Burrow.

[FormerlyBengalRugby]

(01-25-2025, 12:37 AM)phil413 Wrote: Yeah no I'm back and forth but it's hard to justify the price given the history, ideally a tag and trade is the fix if things aren't too messy already. Let him pick a few teams l, get offers and at least get a 2nd now instead of a possible 3rd (if they don't offset it with a signing).  

If Tee could stay healthy for 17 games, then signing him fro 28M a year makes a lot of sense. Basically 1.65M a game. Unfortunately, assuming he misses another 5 games this year, Tee is making 2.33M a game, which is well above his value IMO.

I've been touting the tag and trade idea for a bit, with the pie in the sky dream of them using Tee to trade for another pass rusher to book end with Trey. My persistent dream scenario involves pulling Maxx Crosby off a rebuilding Raiders team.

[Frank Booth]

The bengals do not need Higgins

[Essex Johnson]

I would not sign him to that level of deal, draft his replacement, tag or trade him, reset our focus on defense and offense line, we just had the most productive passing output in Burrow era and did not make the playoffs, passing game is not going to be the problem even with losing Tee, especially we get better guard play and better defense line play

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

Spotrac has Trey Smith projected for a 4yr/78.8m deal ($19.7m/yr) and Josh Sweat for 3yr/45m ($15m/yr).

I would much rather have Trey Smith and Josh Sweat over Tee Higgins and $6.7m (basically what we'd get from cutting Geno Stone) in cap space.

[Millhouse]

(01-25-2025, 11:34 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Spotrac has Trey Smith projected for a 4yr/78.8m deal ($19.7m/yr) and Josh Sweat for 3yr/45m ($15m/yr).

I would much rather have Trey Smith and Josh Sweat over Tee Higgins and $6.7m (basically what we'd get from cutting Geno Stone) in cap space.

If they would have traded him a few months back before window closed, probably have an extra 2nd rounder or so as well. Hindsight is a b***h tho.

[Whacked]

We can’t afford Tee.

Love the guy and will miss him.

I just hope he ends up in the NFC

[FormerlyBengalRugby]

(01-25-2025, 12:20 PM)Whacked Wrote: We can’t afford Tee.

Love the guy and will miss him.

I just hope he ends up in the NFC

AFC/NFC doesn't matter. There's roughly a 30% chance he would miss a game against the Bengals due to injury...

[Isaac Curtis: The Real #85]

We can tag him for $26 mil or so.

And we absolutely can afford it, and extending Chase & Hendrickson. All we have to do is restructure Burrow (+$19 mil), cut some underperforming guys (Cappa, Rankins, Moss, Volson, and Hubbard nets another $30+ mil).

That's roughly $100 mil in space. And yes, there may be tough decisions on guys like BJ Hill, Hilton, & Gesicki. Or maybe we have to part ways with guys like Drew Sample, Stone, McPherson, and/or Pratt to save some more money (all 4 would net another $17.5 mil).

But paying Higgins, Chase, and Hendrickson is not a hard decision. That's the easy part.

The tougher part is how much to pay & when to cut bait on guys like OBJ, Wilson, Hubbard, Pratt, Stone, Hill, Hilton, Gesicki, Boyd, Chido, Karras, Cappa, etc. Guys who are good but not great.

Bates was up and down instead of consistently great here. Reader was when he was on the field. Bates' inconsistency (even he said he let the contract stuff get to him) and Reader's recent injury made these tougher calls than hindsight suggests.

But the mistakes have also been magnified by the blunders in trying to replace them (Rankins, Scott, Stone, Hill at S, etc.).

[*bengalfan74*]

Don't get me wrong I'd love to have Tee back, but....Chase is going to want and deserves top dollar like 36 million or so.

I highly doubt the Bengals are going to offer or pay Tee 28 million per. And I believe tagging him again is a mistake.

[Rubekahn29]

(01-25-2025, 01:54 PM)bengalfan74 Wrote: Don't get me wrong I'd love to have Tee back, but....Chase is going to want and deserves top dollar like 36 million or so.

I highly doubt the Bengals are going to offer or pay Tee 28 million per. And I believe tagging him again is a mistake.

We fix the interior Oline and put D, Tee is not a necessity. If we don’t fix them, then he is.

I’d rather do a tag and trade to recoup some pieces but who knows.

[SunsetBengal]

$112M? Sure, for 5 years...

[BenZoo2]

(01-25-2025, 11:34 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Spotrac has Trey Smith projected for a 4yr/78.8m deal ($19.7m/yr) and Josh Sweat for 3yr/45m ($15m/yr).

I would much rather have Trey Smith and Josh Sweat over Tee Higgins and $6.7m (basically what we'd get from cutting Geno Stone) in cap space.

As would I.  That hits two of our biggest needs imho.  Draft a cb or tee’s replacement in rd 1 and off we go.

[phil413]

(01-25-2025, 09:10 AM)FormerlyBengalRugby Wrote: If Tee could stay healthy for 17 games, then signing him fro 28M a year makes a lot of sense. Basically 1.65M a game. Unfortunately, assuming he misses another 5 games this year, Tee is making 2.33M a game, which is well above his value IMO.

I've been touting the tag and trade idea for a bit, with the pie in the sky dream of them using Tee to trade for another pass rusher to book end with Trey. My persistent dream scenario involves pulling Maxx Crosby off a rebuilding Raiders team.

Crosby is worth a 1st with a few reasonable years left on his deal and contention for DPOY.  I give them that 1st and hopefully you get a 3rd and 4th bare minimum in a Tee trade.  Tag and trade is better than tagging him again, I just can't imagine how distracting that's going to be especially with trying to keep Chase.