NFL Trade Rumors
Bengals WR Tee Higgins is grateful to be heading into a season for the first time in years without the “big headache” of a contract standoff looming between him and the team.
“Honestly, I’m in a good space mentally now,” Higgins said via ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler. “Not having to think about it. Just training my mind, free mind, not having to know where you’re going to be.”
Contract talks dragged out between Higgins and the Bengals for a long time and included a year on the franchise tag and a trade request, though throughout it all Higgins never wanted to leave Cincinnati.
“You put in the trade request, but you really don’t want to go nowhere,” Higgins said. “It’s like, ‘Are they really going to trade me?’ And if they trade me, then I have to shift my whole mindset. I’m not with this team no more, I’m with this new team. I wanted to be here, but if I was to get traded, I would have made that shift then. I didn’t want to make it too early, I would have been clocked out and I didn’t want that.”
Higgins is anticipating having his best season yet, with a renewed focus on staying healthy and some wrinkles from the offense like putting him in the slot more.
“That’s what they are trying to get out of me, put me in different places and different spots on the field,” Higgins said. “Sometimes I’m in the slot, running routes I haven’t run…[I can take advantage as] a big guy in the slot, usually having a nickel on me, a smaller guy.”
The Browns haven’t decided on a starting quarterback yet for Week 1, but the competition does seem to be thinning. At the end of the day, Browns HC Kevin Stefanski said the player who makes the fewest mistakes will likely be the one who gets the nod.
“The guys understand what it’s going to take to win football games,” Stefanski said via Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer. “And I don’t care what your name is, I don’t care who you’re talking about at quarterback, the big thing for this football team is not giving the ball away. We led the league in giveaways the last two seasons, and that’s a really hard way to win football games. In ’23, we were able to overcome it, taking the ball away at a great clip. We didn’t do that in ’24.
Ravens QB Lamar Jackson has quieted any doubters about his passing ability last season after becoming the first player in history to throw at least 40 touchdowns and fewer than five interceptions in a year. Baltimore QB John Harbaugh said the facts show Jackson is a historically good passer, and he praised his relentless work ethic for getting Jackson to this point.
“He is a historically good passer,” Harbaugh said, via the “This is Football” show. *“And that’s really quite a statement because of the narrative...
