New metric nails Tee Higgins' importance to Joe Burrow & Bengals offense

The Cincinnati Bengals made a smart, yet still often questioned, decision to re-sign both Tee Higgins and Ja’Marr Chase to lucrative contracts last offseason. 

While no one questioned whether the Bengals should sign Chase, many wondered why they would go out of their way and their usual manner of doing business to lock up two number-one receivers. 

Well, an NFL analyst has found a formula that goes a long way toward explaining Higgins’ impact on the offense and Joe Burrow. And as it turns out, the star wideout is the best when it comes to this metric. 

New metric puts Tee Higgins’ impact into focus

TikTok user Leah Cammarano set out to answer a plethora of questions she found interesting about who deserves the most individual credit for events on the field. 

One of those questions included which wide receiver was best at making their quarterback’s job easier. Or as she puts it, the receivers highest on her “QB lift” chart are those “who made their quarterback more efficient than expected.”

When she punched in her calculations, Bengals wideout Tee Higgins came out on top, followed by Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Puka Nacua. 

Cammarano noticed that, “when the ball goes their way, their quarterback’s efficiency literally jumps.” 

Cammarano goes on to note that her model tries to separate talent and environment. That means, according to her, despite having what many would consider a high-powered offensive system, Higgins’ performance still elevates those around him enough to make the system even greater. 

Bengals are simply better when Tee Higgins plays

Another way to look at it is that the Bengals’ offense is much better when Higgins is on the field than when he is not. 

No, this does not mean that Higgins is a better receiver than Chase. However, we can infer that the drop-off between Higgins and whoever the number-3 receiver is is huge.

Furthermore, as Chase draws the opponent’s best corner or more double teams, that leaves Higgins with advantageous matchups. 

However, it does mean that the dynamic duo, along with Joe Burrow and Chase Brown, complement each other perfectly and should have much more team success than they’ve experienced over the past three seasons. 

One of the reasons that they have come up short is injuries. In 84 possible games, the trio of Burrow, Higgins, and Chase has played together in only 48 of them. 

Over the past two seasons, they played 17 of a possible 34 games together, posting a 12-5 record.

Another reason the team has not enjoyed as much success as you might think is one of the league’s worst defenses, which surrendered the most rushing yards, the second-most total yards, and third-most points, while leading the league in missed tackles by a wide margin.

Higgins might be even better than we realize

Cammarano’s model also shows that, even though we know Higgins is good, he is better than we think. 

By her calculations, the meme to share is “bleep it, insert player here is down there somewhere,” with Higgins as the poster child. 

To be surrounded by the likes of Burrow, Chase, and Brown, to be able to add so much more efficiency above expectation, is simply phenomenal. 

Furthermore, we should consider Higgins more when calculating how good a QB Burrow is. How much more is another question for another day, which Cammarano could answer. 

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