Joe Burrow says he is ready to do whatever it takes to help the Cincinnati Bengals keep receiver Tee Higgins, who will become a free agent in the offseason.
After the Bengals defeated the Dallas Cowboys 27-20 on Monday night, Burrow didn’t say if he would consider restructuring his contract to help make room for Higgins. “We’ll see,” Burrow said when asked why he was confident the team would bring Higgins back.
Higgins, who is in his fifth season, is playing under the $21.8 million franchise tag. The price for a second year on the franchise tag would go up, but many players don’t want to sign the tag again.
At 25 years old, Higgins is the second-best receiver on the Bengals, behind 2021 AP Offensive Rookie of the Year Ja’Marr Chase, who currently leads the NFL with 1,319 receiving yards and 15 touchdowns.
Higgins has been consistent since the Bengals selected him in the second round of the 2020 draft, the year before they picked Chase in the first round. While Higgins has had some issues with hamstring and quadriceps injuries this season, he’s one of only three NFL receivers to have at least five touchdowns in each of the past five seasons.
Tee Higgins
Tee Higgins (NFL)
“I’m confident we are going to be able to do what it takes to bring Tee back,” Burrow said. “I know that I am going to do what it takes to get him back. So he can have those talks; those are going to be offseason discussions. I think we are excited about that opportunity.”
This past offseason, the Bengals picked up the fifth-year option on Chase’s rookie contract, keeping him with the team through 2025.
Dallas star receiver CeeDee Lamb missed all of the 2024 offseason because of a contract holdout ahead of the fifth year of his rookie deal. Chase could decide to do the same after this season. Lamb’s holdout ended with a $136 million, four-year deal late in the preseason.
Burrow signed a five-year, $275 million extension in 2023, and the Bengals could restructure his deal to create salary cap space for other signings, including for Higgins and Chase.
After the Bengals’ victory over the Cowboys, Burrow was asked if he could imagine playing without Chase, his teammate at LSU when they won the 2019 national championship.
“I don’t want to have that,” Burrow said. “We feed off each other. We make each other better. We are both really smart players. It is tough to take that away when you have a really smart receiver that you can move around and do a lot of things with. Hopefully we can play together as long as we are in this league together.”