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