Welcome to The BRoto "Everything You Need to Know About" series. Throughout the offseason, we will deep-dive into players for the 2022 NFL season and examine the good, the bad, and everything in between.
SUBJECT: Tee Higgins, WR, Cincinnati Bengals
BengalsWire.USAToday.com
THE GOOD:
Objectively speaking, the Cincinnati Bengals have the best young offensive core in football. The unit is led by 25-year-old quarterback Joe Burrow, with running back Joe Mixon, who turns 26 today, July 24, and young star receivers Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, still just 22 and 23 years old, respectively.
Despite the overwhelming amount of youth in the group, the Bengals showcased their electrifying offensive talents en-route to an appearance in Super Bowl LVI (the team’s first appearance in 33 seasons), where they eventually fell to the Los Angeles Rams. Their postseason magic also marked the team’s first playoff victory in over three decades, with their most recent win coming back in 1990.
With most of the spotlight on the dynamic pairing of Burrow and Chase, largely due to their time together on arguably the greatest team in college football history, Tee Higgins quietly dominated opposing CB2’s in 2021. After a relatively slow start to his season, in which Higgins topped 80 receiving yards just once in the team’s first ten games, the sophomore receiver broke out with authority.
Following the team’s bye week in week 10, Higgins topped the century mark in receiving yards in four of his seven appearances, including a 194-yard, 2-touchdown performance versus the Baltimore Ravens in Week 16, helping Burrow to his best performance of the season by accumulating nearly 40% of the team’s 525 passing yards and half of the four touchdown passes. His 129.0 fantasy points over this stretch landed him as the seventh best PPR receiver over that period, just 2.8 points behind fifth-place teammate Ja’Marr Chase.
While Higgins managed only a 24th place finish at the position in 2021 in PPR leagues, it was his playoff performance that has fantasy managers everywhere looking to pick him up. After a measly 10-yard performance in the team’s first game of the post-season, Higgins stepped up big, finishing with 96 yards in his second outing before leading all participants in receiving yards in both the AFC Championship Game (103 on six receptions) and the Super Bowl (100 on four). He additionally scored both of the Bengals touchdowns in the “Big Dance”, first on a 6-yard pass in the second quarter, then a 75-yard house-call on the first play of the second half.
Despite an already great season by Higgins, a look at the advanced metrics provided by Broto and PlayerProfiler.com shows that Higgins actually underperformed when it came to expected fantasy points per game. Tee Higgins finished 8th overall among WRs in Broto’s True Target Value, while ending just 19th in points per game, and tallied an expected 18.2 points per game, per playerprofiler, which was a full 2.5 points higher than his actual total. This expected number placed him 7th among qualified receivers and was 1.7 points higher than the expectation for Ja’Marr Chase. Higgins also finished one slot ahead of 9th ranked Chase in True Target Value. While this might not seem like much, it actually displays that, based on advanced metrics, Higgins was supposed to be a better fantasy receiver on a per-game basis than his own teammate and the 2021 Offensive Rookie of the Year.
THE BAD:
Tee Higgins displayed in 2021 that he can be a good-to-great fantasy option for your lineups in any given week, though that’s not to say he’s perfect. While he put up great numbers in big moments, Higgins also displayed in the past season that his hands aren’t quite what they are billed to be. Among qualified candidates, Higgins had the third best target quality rating (7.22) and catchable target rate (85.5%) in the league in 2021. Once again, this displays that Burrow is a very talented quarterback and will be great for the long-term value of both Higgins and Chase. Despite this, Higgins’ true catch rate in 2021 was just 78.7%, landing him at number 77 among these same candidates. His contested catch rate, which was one of his biggest supporting metrics leading up to the 2020 NFL draft, fell to just 25% this past season, again leaving him outside the top 70 of qualified candidates. This means that, despite the quality of the targets he was receiving from Burrow, Higgins was below-average to bad when it came to securing the ball. While he has all of the tools to change this in 2022, it is certainly a metric to watch for the future.
SUPPORTING CAST:
As mentioned above, the Cincinnati Bengals have one of, if not the, best young offensive cores in the NFL. All four of the players mentioned above finished in the top 12 at their respective positions in PPR points per game (Burrow, 10th; Mixon, 5th; Chase, 5th; Higgins, 12th). It’s not often you see an offensive group have so many players finish among the elite of the elite at their positions. When it comes to the passing game alone, Higgins faces competition primarily from Chase, who led the team last season in targets, receptions, yards, and touchdowns. Bengals WR3, Tyler Boyd, managed just 67 catches on 94 targets last season, with a sizeable amount of his production coming in Weeks 3 and 4 when Higgins was inactive.
Tight End C.J. Uzomah finished fourth on the team in targets, though he has since departed for the New York Jets. It is unlikely that those targets are vacated, as he was quickly replaced by Hayden Hurst, who as recently as 2020 commanded 88 targets while a member of the Atlanta Falcons. Thus, we must look at this position as somewhat of a wash when it comes to targets, though Hurst is a much better red zone threat than Uzomah.
Other than these players, the only other wide receiver to breach ten targets in 2021 was Mike Thomas with 11, meaning the majority of the work should continue to funnel through Chase, Higgins, and Boyd to a degree.
OFFENSIVE OUTLOOK:
Joe Burrow flourished in 2021 despite an abysmal offensive line which caused him to be the most pressured quarterback in the NFL last season. In the offseason, the team entirely revamped their front five, with only left tackle Jonah Williams retaining his starting role. This improvement should hopefully lead to cleaner pockets for Burrow and allow the passing game to go to another level, pushing Chase and Higgins into the stratosphere as the primary beneficiaries. Elsewhere, the continuity of the unit should continue to push the unit to even greater heights, with Head Coach Zac Taylor and Offensive Coordinator Brian Callahan both returning for the 2022 season.
ADP REVIEW:
With Higgins locked in as the Bengal’s second receiver, his WR12 ADP might seem high. After all, it’s not often you look at a team’s second option in the passing game as a crucial piece for a fantasy football roster. However, when regarding the offensive upside of the entire unit, it is entirely possible that the Cincinnati Bengals could see two receivers finish in the top 6 at the position, something that hasn’t happened since Randy Moss and Cris Carter finished second and third overall, respectively, in 1999. We might well be watching history unfold in 2022, so drafting Higgins as the WR12 has a lot of upside paired with it.
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By Trenton Roberts
For a second straight season, I am betting against Mahomes.