Stephen A. Smith thinks Cincinnati Bengals WR Tee Higgins was off base with comments about starting fast.
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Stephen A. Smith thinks Cincinnati Bengals WR Tee Higgins was off base with comments about starting fast.
The Cincinnati Bengals are dealing with a narrative this offseason that the team gets off to slow starts. It’s not really a narrative, the Bengals under head coach Zac Taylor have gone 1-11 in the first two weeks of the season and 4-13-1 through three weeks. That’s not an opinion, those are facts.
This week, wide receiver Tee Higgins told Adam Schein of Mad Dog Sports radio that he didn’t like the added pressure of getting off to a fast start this year.
“I really don’t like the narrative of getting off to a hot start,” Higgins said.
“I just feel like at the end of the day, we just got to execute as a team,” Higgins continued. “Offense has to complement the defense. Defense has to complement the offense. And special teams got to complement both.”
Stephen A. Smith didn’t care for Tee Higgins’ comments
First Take host and potential presidential hopeful (that’s complete conjecture) Stephen A. Smith didn’t care for Higgins’ opinion on this. At all.
While he was glad Higgins “got his bag,” Smith quickly changed his tone to focus on the wide receiver’s comments.
“But that’s one of the most ignorant quotes of the year,” Smith declared. “That’s going to be a top 10 ignorant quote of the year.”
Smith was then quick to point out the Bengals’ recent record of awful starts.
“I have called for an investigation into Zac Taylor and his coaching staff as to what they’re doing once the season is over, until mid-September, because they don’t show up ready to play to start the season,” Smith said, probably at a loud volume.
Smith then said that Higgins is either “completely lost” or he “can’t count.”
“That was a foolish statement on his part.”
Bengals are trying to make some adjustments to get off to better starts
Neither Higgins nor Smith are necessarily wrong. Higgins doesn’t want to focus on hot starts because…what if it doesn’t happen? What if the team starts 0-2 yet again, should they just pack it in and cancel the season? But, Smith isn’t incorrect either in that the Bengals should absolutely be working to improve their early record.
For his part, Taylor is changing up the way the team approaches the preseason. Wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase even suggested back in May that the first team should probably get more exhibition work.
“It sounds like we need to play in the preseason, huh?” Chase said when asked about the team’s clunky starts in previous years.
Previously, starters played little if at all. This year, quarterback Joe Burrow and co. played almost an entire quarter in the team’s opening game against the Philadelphia Eagles.
Will it help? Only time will tell, but whatever they were doing previously certainly wasn’t working. The Bengals opened last season at home against the New England Patriots. They lost that game and they would have made the playoffs if they’d have won; they were 9-8 in 2024 and missed out by one game. That stings when you consider that the Patriots only won three more games all season.
Certainly, Higgins would be thrilled to begin 2025 at 2-0 or 3-0, even if Smith doesn’t see it that way.