Tee Higgins announced his departure

Cincinnati Bengals Wide receiver, Tee Higgins, announced his departure…

The Cincinnati Bengals used the franchise tag on wide receiver Tee Higgins Monday, but that doesn’t mean he’ll be on the roster for the 2024 season.

A trade still remains a possibility, and the team’s director of player personnel Duke Tobin didn’t outright rule it out while speaking to reporters on Tuesday:

“The message is: We really like Tee, and we’re a better team with Tee. In terms of our intentions going forward, and answering hypotheticals of what could and couldn’t come about, I won’t get into that. But we feel like we’re a better team with him. The reason we franchised him is because we would like to have him. He’s not under contract, and it’s hard for me to predict all the different scenarios that could happen. But we feel strongly about Tee Higgins and his fit with us.”

Tobin struck a far different chord when asked about possibly trading Higgins last offseason.

“I’m in the business of making the Cincinnati Bengals better, and so trading Tee Higgins is not on my mind,” he told reporters in Feb. 2023. “That’s their problem. [If] they want a receiver, go find your own.”

Well, for one, Joe Burrow’s massive five-year, $275 million extension kicks in for the 2024 season. And Ja’Marr Chase is going to get a huge extension in the near future too, calling into question just how much of the salary cap the team will be willing to commit to the receiver position.

Tobin acknowledged the challenges of roster-building within the NFL’s salary cap while discussing Higgins:

“It’s always a priority when you think about premier-type players and how long you want them. We work within the confines of the CBA [Collective Bargaining Agreement] like every other team does, and sometimes things come together on a long-term basis; sometimes they don’t. So, we use the resources we have, but we’re always thinking about the future of players and who’s coming up and who we want to have long-term relationships with. It’s a never-ending puzzle. Just when you put a piece in, someone reaches over and takes a piece out. So, we’re trying to fit more pieces in than they’re taking out.”

As for keeping Higgins on the franchise tag, it was a win-win-win for the organization.

It keeps him off the free agent market, ensuring at least one more season of team control; it buys them time to work out a long-term extension if they choose to go that route; and it gives them the option to still trade him if negotiations go sour or a team blows them away with an offer.

“It’s really simple: He’s a good player. We want to keep him, and we have resources to do that, so we decided early to do it, and that’s where we are,” Tobin said. “We like Tee. We’re a better team with Tee. With the way that we’ve managed our cap, we had the ability to put the franchise tag on him, and we did.”