Every year, the week leading up to the Super Bowl is peak time for NFL gossip. Players, executives and media members all gather in one location and share information ahead of the upcoming draft and free agency. Not all information gleaned during this time is accurate, but some is, and worth sharing. So, here we are.
There’s a buzz about Tee Higgins remaining in Cleveland, according to an NFL insider
Cincinnati Bengals fans are hungry for information regarding star wide receiver Tee Higgins, who is headed for free agency next month, and NFL insider James Palmer has an update. According to Palmer, there was buzz in New Orleans that Higgins has a good chance of staying in Cincinnati.
“Right now the buzz is there’s a greater chance of him returning to Cincinnati than going elsewhere, that really is the talk here in New Orleans,”Palmer said on Bleacher Report’s NFL Insider Notebook, via Sports Illustrated. “That there’s a greater chance of him coming back to Cincinnati than him hitting the open market.”
That update should be music to the ears of Bengals fans, and also to Joe Burrow. The star quarterback has spent months publicly campaigning for the Bengals to retain Higgins, who caught 73 passes for 911 yards and 10 touchdowns in 2024.
Bengals fans shouldn’t count their chickens before they’re hatched, though. Cincinnati’s front office is notoriously frugal, and they also have to iron out extensions with guys like Ja’Marr Chase and Trey Hendrickson. Keeping all of those key contributors in Black and Orange wouldn’t be an easy task for any organization, let alone the one we’re talking about.
Whether the two sides will be able to agree on a new deal remains to be seen, and recent comments from Bengals director of player personnel Duke Tobin didn’t necessarily make it sound like re-signing Higgins is a top priority.
“He is a guy that we want to have here,” Tobin said of Higgins, via the Cincinnati Enquirer. “Hopefully that can come together, but we have other guys who are trying to take big bites of the apple in other areas, and we’re going to have to balance those as we go forward.”
The situation is a fluid one, and new reports will likely continue to emerge in the coming weeks. We’ll continue to monitor them.
