Inevitably, there are going to be some comparisons between the Cincinnati Bengals and Buffalo Bills right about now considering how they’ve handled their star wide receivers.
The Bengals remain in a mini-standoff with franchise-tagged star Tee Higgins. Those Bills just pulled off a stunner of a trade, sending Stefon Diggs and two draft picks to the Houston Texans in exchange for a 2025 second-round pick.
But for those who think the trade might signal that Higgins is worth quite a bit more on the trade market, that isn’t necessarily the case.
All it might mean is the Bengals have picked the right course of action.
Most of it comes down to the Bills just wanting to get out of the Diggs situation entirely. It was clear even to outsiders that the relationship between player and team soured, hence Buffalo being willing to eat this much cap space just to get him out of town:
the Stefon Diggs saga in Buffalo
in 2020 the Bills traded for Diggs
they gave up a 1st, 4th, 5th & 6th
they paid him as the #6 most expensive WR in the NFL at the time
in 2022 they signed him to an even larger $96,000,000 deal
all told, from 2020-2023 the Bills paid him…
— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) April 3, 2024
To top it off, Diggs is going into his age-31 season, so the Bills shipping him off right in the middle of Josh Allen’s prime, and what the franchise hopes is a contention window, seems to say quite a bit.
Higgins, on the other hand, is just 25 years old with a pair of 1,000-yard seasons to his name already and hints of further upside as a possible No. 1 when he’s not sharing the targets with Ja’Marr Chase. There are availability concerns, but the acquiring team would likely sign him to a long-term extension.
The thing is, teams aren’t going to offer much better than what the Bills just got for Diggs. Clubs aren’t blind — Higgins is the long-term better option for the next three-plus years at a minimum, injury history aside. But when players like Diggs are available, when names like A.J. Brown get traded, names like Tyler Boyd remain free agents this deep into the market and a historic-looking wideout draft class is on the way, there’s no sense in coughing up a first-round pick.
The Bengals, it seems, have played it well. If a team really wants Higgins, it’ll offer more than what the Bills got for Diggs. Meaning a first-rounder at a minimum. And if not, Higgins will play next year on the tag with the looming threat of a double-tag (costly, but the cap keeps dramatically rising) hanging over long-term negotiations.
