2x Broncos Super Bowl champion outlines major hindrance with Tee Higgins' contact extension for Bengals

The Cincinnati Bengals have an interesting couple of offseasons coming up. Tee Higgins is an impending free agent this year, and all signs point to him being elsewhere next season. One former Super Bowl champion believes it's almost impossible to see him remaining in Cincinnati.

Craig Carton said:

"He's an unrestricted free agent. So there's going to be 10 teams bidding for the services of Tee Higgins and I think the Bengals made a calculated mistake. As Mark said yesterday, the salary cap in the NFL is 'fungible' which means you can make it work if you want to make it work. Tee Higgins will not be with Cincinnati Bengals."

Mark Schlereth added:

"Ja'Marr Chase hasn't been paid yet. They've got to pay him, and whenever you get a guy say, 'Hey, the pie is only so big' which essentially means we're not that interested. We're not that into you. There's no question so they're just looking at it like hey, man, we don't want to spend this money on Tee Higgins."

The issue is that if they pay Higgins what he's undoubtedly going to want and get, they'll be completely unable to sign Ja'Marr Chase. With respect to Higgins, Chase is certainly the wide receiver they'd prefer to have long term.

This comes on the back of Joe Burrow's record-setting extension, so the money isn't freely available. They'd be hard-pressed to lock up all three at probably a combined $120 million or more.

What teams might go after Tee Higgins?

The timing of Tee Higgins' free agency doesn't even take into account the wide receiver market and the amount of teams that will want to go after him. He's going to be highly coveted as the best wide receiver in free agency and the only major one who's younger than 30 (Higgins is 25).

Expect the Carolina Panthers to be interested, and it wouldn't be a shock for them to throw a lot of money at him to convince him to come be Bryce Young's top target.

The Washington Commanders, Chicago Bears, Indianapolis Colts, Arizona Cardinals and other teams have plenty of cap space and could be interested as well.