Bengals franchise tag Tee Higgins

[Chicken Boo]

It's the right move.  You keep that trio together for as long as humanly possible.  Chase Brown is no slouch either. 

[FireChans]

2 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Yea but they are going to have to pay Chase this year. The elite guys want paying as soon as they come due now - after year 3. If they don't pay Chase expect it to get tense quite quickly. Now the way you do that normally is you give him a huge chunk of change as a bonus so that it doesn't make a big dent in the cap until after the rookie contract years are done. But Mike Brown is a cash to cap guy. He doesn't have deep pockets to start throwing a lot of money around up front and then just account for it on the cap over the long term. It just makes it tricky. 

 

I don't think this is the right play by the Bengals (and I have always liked Tee a lot) unless they are going to try the much talked about, rarely executed, tag and trade option turn that 3rd round comp pick into a 1st or high 2nd maybe?

When was the last time a tag and trade was executed? I honestly can’t remember.

[GunnerBill]

6 minutes ago, FireChans said:

When was the last time a tag and trade was executed? I honestly can’t remember.

 

Clowney maybe? I think Clowney and Frank Clark were the same year. Can't recall one since. 

[Bill from NYC]

8 hours ago, Aussie Joe said:

And the cap is likely north of $300m come 2026

That depends on when Taylor Swift and Kelce break up, no?

[Doc Brown]

4 hours ago, FireChans said:

When was the last time a tag and trade was executed? I honestly can’t remember.

Adams to the Raiders I believe.  Packers got a 1st and a 2nd for him.

[Bills!Win!]

Good teams find a way to keep their best players. The loser franchises trade their good players away and “rebuild”

[DJB]

Hopefully this means they don’t draft a WR round 1

[Doc Brown]

5 minutes ago, DJB said:

Hopefully this means they don’t draft a WR round 1

My guess would be OT with Jonah Williams likely gone.  They have a lot of money in Burrow and need to protect him given his injury history.

[NoSaint]

8 hours ago, John from Riverside said:

Good news for us takes one more team out of the first round wide receiver market

they were not likely in it if he walked, and Higgins might’ve took a different team out of it - so kind of the opposite?

[BarleyNY]

5 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Clowney maybe? I think Clowney and Frank Clark were the same year. Can't recall one since. 

Also Jags tagged and traded Yannick Ngakoue. Did GB do it with Davante Adams too?

Edited February 24 by BarleyNY

[Gigs]

Glass Burrow better stay mostly healthy, because Tee is going to be a #1 somewhere else after the upcoming season. This dude is all about the bag and I'd be shocked but not entirely surprised if he doesn't get snippy over getting tagged and not super extended. 

[GunnerBill]

12 minutes ago, BarleyNY said:

Also Jags tagged and traded Yannick Ngakoue. Did GB do it with Davante Adams too?

 

Hmm. Good call on Adams. Think they did.

[JerseyBills]

9 hours ago, FireChans said:

If the Bungles don’t get a long term deal done, I don’t think they are out of the first round market at all.

 

Smart teams would draft a WR before it becomes a big need.

Right. And they're likely losing Boyd

[aristocrat]

32 minutes ago, Gigs said:

Glass Burrow better stay mostly healthy, because Tee is going to be a #1 somewhere else after the upcoming season. This dude is all about the bag and I'd be shocked but not entirely surprised if he doesn't get snippy over getting tagged and not super extended. 

wouldn’t you be about the bag? Players have short careers and one injury can ruin the bag and serious money

[Ya Digg?]

30 minutes ago, aristocrat said:

wouldn’t you be about the bag? Players have short careers and one injury can ruin the bag and serious money

Right! Players should always 100% be about the money-it’s not their job to make things work within the cap. People who say they wouldn’t chase the money are lying to themselves. It’s such a weird world we live in where so many people bash the people who put the product on the field and protect the big time billionaire owners 

[Big Turk]

11 hours ago, Ya Digg? said:

Would’ve been more surprising if they didn’t franchise tag him. Most likely will be gone after next season but they get to keep him for one more year before their big salaries get close to kicking in. It will be really interesting to see how much Chase gets when he signs his new deal 

 

That's surprising honestly...gonna cost them a lot of money for that one. Somewhere in the $20-21 million a year range, and they are already paying Chase. Doesn't seem very smart considering they are in perfect position to draft a stud WR in a loaded draft...perhaps they still do it and let him develop as a #3 before Higgins leaves next year..

[Low Positive]

@GunnerBillis trying to tell you all something and you're not listening. It doesn't matter how much cap space the Bengals have. They always have a lot of cap space. The issue here in Cincinnati is cash. Mike Brown's only valuable asset is a small-market NFL team. Most NFL owners, in an attempt to win, are kicking in some of their own money to help pay player bonuses to circumvent the cap. Mike Brown doesn't have that kind of cash on hand. The Bengals went into the year as a contending team and they played with 10 million in cap space. So, this being the case, tagging Higgins is a pretty dumb move that was made to appease Joe Burrow and the fans. This will backfire this year because it will further weaken an already bad defense.

 

I know people here think that the Bengals have a good defense (and DC) because for some reason they have our number. But they had one of the worst defenses in the NFL last year (Ranked 31 out of 32 in total defense). They went from 3rd in points allowed in 2022 to 22nd in 2023. That was because they lost both safeties in FA. They very much had the cap space to sign all-pro Jessie Bates, but they didn't. Why? BECAUSE MIKE BROWN DOESN'T HAVE THE MONEY TO EVEN SPEND TO THE CAP. This year, DJ Reeder is a FA and they'll lose him even though they have the space (but not the money) to sign him and he wants to stay. They also spent too much of their limited cash on Orlando Brown, but that's another story. 

[Ya Digg?]

7 minutes ago, Big Turk said:

 

That's surprising honestly...gonna cost them a lot of money for that one. Somewhere in the $20-21 million a year range, and they are already paying Chase. Doesn't seem very smart considering they are in perfect position to draft a stud WR in a loaded draft...perhaps they still do it and let him develop as a #3 before Higgins leaves next year..

Well they aren’t paying Chase yet, he’s still on his rookie contract. Which is why they can afford the franchise tag for Higgins this year. I do think the Bengals will draft a WR at some point, but even if they had let Higgins walk I highly doubt it would’ve been in the first round. They have Burrow’s huge contract and he can’t stay healthy, so I would think protecting him had to be their first priority 

[Gigs]

1 hour ago, aristocrat said:

wouldn’t you be about the bag? Players have short careers and one injury can ruin the bag and serious money

I would be to an extent; get mine but give a discount a la Milano or Brady. Everybody's different tho.

 

However, Tee and Chase have both said they want Justin Jefferson to get paid first and reset the market. Realistically they're only keeping Chase after next year. Boyd is a FA and the Bengals just committed 20mil guaranteed to Higgins. The Bengals also don't like guaranteed monies after year one of the contract, so that might cost them Chase as well. Lucky for them this year is like a double dose of the 96 draft lol (it even comes with a rookie Marvin Harrison!) But they better get it right and hope Mr Glass doesn't have one of his kidneys fail, or suffer some sort of anal prolapse or something out of left field lol.  That dude is one injury away from being Bad Luck Burrow. 

[Arkady Renko]

3 hours ago, Bills!Win! said:

Good teams find a way to keep their best players. The loser franchises trade their good players away and “rebuild”

Like the Chiefs and Tyreek Hill?