Tee Higgins's Preseason Player Analysis

Bottom Line

Higgins’ two biggest questions are his contract situation and health. We’ll have to watch both, but he should remain a solid-to-good fantasy bet as long as he’s practicing and healthy when your league drafts. The injury risk is real. Higgins carries the highest probability of any WR in our injury predictor. But you can insure against that. And the well-known risk has Higgins all the way down at WR27 in best ball ADP.

What We Learned Last Year

• Higgins continued to deal with injury issues. He fractured a rib in Week 4 but managed to miss only one game. A midyear hamstring injury cost him another three, though, and would sideline him again for Week 18.
  • Along the way, Higgins saw limited playing time in four other contests.
  • That was an issue in 2022 as well. Higgins didn’t miss any full games that season but left three of them too early to be a fantasy factor, with three different injuries.
  • He lost two early-season games to a shoulder injury in 2021.
• The combo of Higgins’ 2023 injuries and QB Joe Burrow’s dual issues made the WR’s season tough to judge when he was on the field.
  • The rib injury came in the final game of Burrow’s weak start while working back from a calf strain.
  • A healthy Higgins delivered an 8-110 receiving line in Week 9. But he then missed the next three games, and Burrow suffered a season-ending wrist injury while Higgins was out.
• Higgins averaged just 3.5 catches on 5.8 targets over four healthy games with QB Jake Browning.
• After running even with Ja’Marr Chase in target share in 2021 (Chase’s rookie year), Higgins has slipped well behind over the past two seasons.
• His performance slipped in 2023 by advanced metrics, but that shouldn’t surprise anyone. Higgins managed just eight games at his usual snap rate. Three of those came with a limited Burrow; four more with Browning.
  • Before 2023, Higgins looked fairly consistent by those measures.
  • He finished 14th among WRs in PPR points per game in 2021 and 13th in 2022 – Burrow’s two healthy seasons.

What to Expect in 2024

• The Bengals used the franchise tag to keep Higgins off the open market, but a contract extension doesn’t seem likely.
• Cincinnati already gave big money to Burrow and has called Chase’s extension a “priority.” Both sides are saying they want Higgins to stick around, but it’s tough to pay everyone. And there have been trade rumors since before Higgins got tagged.
• The Bengals let WR Tyler Boyd walk (for a smallish, one-year contract) in free agency. They drafted WR Jermaine Burton in Round 3. The most significant other addition to the pass-catching corps was TE/slot WR Mike Gesicki.
• As long as Higgins’ contract situation doesn’t create a long summer holdout, he should remain a key passing-game factor. And Boyd’s departure leaves plenty of targets up for grabs.
  • Boyd ranked among the Bengals’ top 3 in that category for each of Higgins’ first four seasons – including second on the team last year.
  • Perhaps some of those Boyd looks go Higgins’ way, but he’s probably not absorbing a significant portion. Only one of their four shared seasons found Boyd within 4.0 yards of Higgins in aDOT (2022).
  • That says they haven’t tended to run similar routes. So unless Higgins suddenly takes on more slot work, Boyd’s departure will probably have little impact.
  • Higgins has run less than 18% of his pass routes from the slot each of the past two years, down from 21% in 2021 and 27.5% in 2020.
  • Even Chase has spent more time in the slot (23.5% in 2023). Jermaine Burton ran 25.7% of his college pass snaps from the slot.
• The QB play should rebound. Burrow returned to the field for spring workouts, indicating his wrist shouldn’t be an issue for 2024.
• The Bengals had to replace their OC after Brian Callahan left for Tennessee’s HC post. But replacement Dan Pitcher spent the past four years as Cincinnati’s QBs coach and has been on the offensive staff since 2016 – longer than HC Zac Taylor’s been around. Taylor has also been the play caller. So this shouldn’t be a difficult transition.