Cincy Jungle
That is, if the Bengals don’t get an extension done soon.
The Cincinnati Bengals used their franchise tag on wide receiver Tee Higgins before the 2024 season in hopes that he, along with Ja’Marr Chase and Joe Burrow, could bring a Super Bowl trophy home to the Queen City.
Things obviously didn’t work out, but the Bengals haven’t given up on keeping Higgins, announcing they intended to use their franchise tag on him again in 2025.
It feels different this season, though. The Bengals seem intent on keeping Higgins in Cincinnati long-term, and it appears as if placing the tag on him now just gives them a little more time to get all the I’s dotted and the T’s crossed.
With the salary cap going up every year and the amount of cap space the team has to work with, there is no real reason they can’t re-sign Higgins while extending Chase and Trey Hendrickson, as well as going after a few key free agents. Hopefully, that’s what we’re about to see, and if it is, it could be one of the rare years in which there are no players tagged on any team.
According to Mike Florio, the only two players who had any remote possibility of being tagged were Higgins and Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold. However, he noted Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell told reporters during the week of the Super Bowl that Darnold had “earned the right to become a free agent.”
Kansas City Chiefs Pro Bowl guard Trey Smith also looked like a potential tag candidate, but with so much of their cap space already accounted for, that doesn’t appear to be in the cards.
If the Bengals figure out a way to extend Higgins, it would be the first time since 1996 that no team used their franchise tag. Fingers crossed.
