Buckle up Cincinnati Bengals fans because this is going to be another rocky offseason in the Queen City. It's the second straight year that Bengals fans will get to experience drama surrounding the Tee Higgins contract situation, only this time Ja'Marr Chase IS going to get paid and that will absolutely make it more difficult for the Bengals to pay both receivers.
There's good and bad news with the Higgins contract stuff. The good is that Joe Burrow hasn't been shy about voicing how much he wants Higgins to stay with the team. He's repeatedly said that he wants the front office to keep the key guys and if the franchise quarterback is telling you what he wants, in most cases, the organization will do whatever they can to make that guy happy.
The bad news is that, on top of having to pay Chase a huge chunk of change as well, Higgins isn't keeping hush-hush about what's going down. On Tuesday night, Higgins tweeted a cap emoji, and while this might seem confusing to some, it's slang for "lying" (don't worry, I had to look it up too).
Tee Higgins casts doubt on his Bengals’ future with one emoji
Last year's Tee Higgins contract saga ended with the former second-round pick signing the franchise tag and playing on that for the 2024 season. It was a nice year for Higgins, as, despite missing five games, he finished with over 900 receiving yards and scored 10 touchdowns.
Higgins proved that he's a huge asset to this Bengals offense but the fact of the matter is that teams can't pay everyone and need to be smart about who they keep and who they let walk. With Cincinnati already having Chase and needing to get better on defense, paying both Chase and Higgins a ton of money might not be the best play here.
Higgins clearly didn't agree that Duke Tobin and the Bengals were working on a long-term extension for him (something Tobin said during his media session on Tuesday) and that's where the cap emoji came from. This saga feels far from over, that's for sure.