The Bengals And Tee Higgins SHOULD Reach A Contract Extension Very Soon…

AtoZ Sports

John Sheeran discusses the likelihood of the Cincinnati Bengals and Tee Higgins reaching a new deal.

Transcript

00:00The next step of the Tee Higgins saga has finally arrived, but a lot of Bengals fans

00:03remain extremely uneasy about the whole situation. So in this video,

00:07I'll explain why we can finally expect a conclusion to all of this.

00:14Hi again Bengals fans, John Sheeran of Adidas Esports Cincinnati here, and we're not breaking

00:18any news here, but the Bengals have placed the second franchise tag on Tee Higgins.

00:21And I could have recorded that statement anytime within the last two weeks,

00:24because this was always going to be the next step in the process.

00:27And despite the confirmation that Higgins is not going to be a part of the free agency market,

00:31and he is going to be locked in at least for another year for Cincinnati as of right now,

00:35I still think this news annoys a lot of Bengals fans.

00:37Because everybody just wants a deal to get done. The Bengals surely

00:41want a deal to get done. Higgins wants a deal to get done. The fans, you guys,

00:45want a deal to get done. But that doesn't happen unless both sides have no choice

00:49but to come together at the negotiating table. And if we're operating under the

00:52assumption that the Bengals were already there based off of the words that Duke Tobin used last

00:56week at the NFL scouting combine, then the conclusion we can make is that Higgins' camp

00:59wasn't quite there yet because they still had the possibility of entering free agency in their

01:04back pocket. That was the last piece of leverage that Higgins' camp could have used against the

01:07Bengals, the idea that they could talk to other teams and raise the price up even more.

01:11The Bengals' last piece of leverage, however, was using the tag on him again, because now

01:15he can only negotiate with them. So now we're here where both sides have to talk to each other

01:20about reaching a long-term extension, because again, that's not going to be possible for Tee

01:24anywhere else. And that's why the tag ultimately had to happen. It's the only way that you can

01:29lock in these talks accelerating to a point where something proactive can actually happen.

01:33So what are we looking at in terms of a timeline here? I think the goal is to get this done before

01:38the beginning of free agency. And when I'm talking about the beginning of actual free agency,

01:42I'm talking about the beginning of legal tampering, which is next Monday afternoon

01:46at noon Eastern. And the reason for doing that is because right now Tee Higgins has the second

01:50largest cap hit on the Bengals roster at $26.2 million. But they can't touch that cap hit right

01:56now if they don't sign him to a long-term deal. So for the Bengals, who still plan on being active

02:01in free agency, their full intent is to lowering that cap hit for Tee Higgins this season, while

02:06also obviously giving him the long-term security that both sides want. And something we didn't

02:10talk about a couple of weeks ago, when we talked about Higgins getting tagged, is when other

02:13players do sign extensions after they receive the franchise tag. Going off of last year,

02:17when there were seven players who got the tag and then got new contracts, this is not including

02:22Tee Higgins, who was the eighth guy who had to watch all this stuff happen,

02:25four players got new contracts within the first week after getting tagged. One of them

02:29was traded in Brian Burns, but you're talking about Jalen Johnson of the Chicago Bears,

02:33Nnamdi Madibuke of the Baltimore Ravens, and Michael Pittman of the Indianapolis Colts,

02:37all signed long-term deals with their respective teams before free agency began.

02:42That's the formula. That's the path the Bengals want to take. They want to make sure that Tee

02:45Higgins' contract is locked in, it's in place, and that their whole cap situation is settled

02:50before they start spending in free agencies. Because that's new money. That's new dollars

02:54that go onto the cap, and they have to be mindful of that. And doing so without having a $26.2

02:58million arbitrage just staring at them in the face, that's preferable. Now, obviously,

03:02getting a deal done within the next week is not set in stone. There are some examples where

03:06it takes a little bit longer than that. For example, Antoine Winfield Jr. didn't sign his

03:10deal until May last year with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after he was tagged. But again,

03:14that's not what the Bengals want to do here. The longer that this drags out,

03:17the more it looks like last year's situation where there was no communication on both sides,

03:22and Higgins ended up missing out on a lot of off-season workouts. He eventually did return

03:26to training camp. But I think if July rolls around and there's still not a deal there for Higgins,

03:31I doubt he's going to be participating in training camp and putting his body on the line.

03:34And there are zero, and I repeat, zero excuses for it to drag on that long. There are really

03:39no excuses for this whole thing to extend beyond the month of March. The market for Tee Higgins is

03:44extremely clear. We predicted on the show that he would sign a deal between $28 and $29 million

03:49per year. Now, Tee may have thought he could have gotten more than that on the open market,

03:52and maybe the Bengals started negotiations at the $26 million per year mark, which is what

03:56the franchise tag is. Just meet in the middle. There's been so much time to discuss this.

04:00There's a clear framework based off of what other high-end wide receiver two or low-end wide

04:04receiver ones have been making over the past couple of years. There's so much to get this done.

04:09Just get it done within the next week. Because there are two very simple facts that are driving

04:13this entire thing. Fact number one, the Bengals wanted this. Fact number two, Tee Higgins wanted

04:18this. And now, both sides are here, and they're not going anywhere. Work it out. Get it done.

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