Higgins’ final season with the Bengals has been mostly heartbreak.
Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals offense did about everything they could do in the second half of Sunday night’s Week 11 game against the Chargers. Burrow threw three second-half touchdowns, two to Ja’Marr Chase and one to Tee Higgins, to tie the game at 27, only for it to be undone by another Evan McPherson missed field goal and subsequent defensive collapse.
Was the offense perfect? No, but the defense is so bad, the only way the offense can beat a good team, and the Chargers are a good team, is by being perfect, and that’s just not realistic.
Tee Higgins played his first game in three weeks, having to sit out thanks to a quad injury. After the game he voiced his understandable frustration in the team’s inability to close out games.
“I don’t think we need to change nothing,” Higgins said during postgame interviews via Mike Petraglia. “We’re playing hella good football. If you look at the stats, both sides of the ball, like today, we played hella good football. I don’t know what it is, man. We just got to finish. That’s the word. That is the word for the week: Finish the f*****g game.
“So as long as we do that, we’ll be alright. I’m gonna look past this one. Obviously, it’s a tough loss. Hats off to those guys over there. Ain’t gonna discredit them. They played a hell of a game. We just got to go back, figure it out, and come back next week, two weeks, and finish.”
Higgins is right. The Bengals do need to finish. He’s not right about both sides playing good football, though. Higgins doesn’t seem to be the type of player to throw his teammates under the bus, but the defense is not playing good football. They did put about a quarter and two-thirds of a quarter together of good football in the second half, but the reality is the Chargers’ offense was just mediocre coming into Week 11.
Herbert passed for more yards against the Bengals’ secondary than he has any team the Chargers have played this season. On top of that, he ran for 65 yards, averaging 13 yards per carry.
That’s not good defense.
By allowing defensive talent to leave Cincinnati and replacing them with lesser talent, the Bengals’ front office has created a situation where their quarterback can lead the league in nearly every statistical category, yet his team is hanging on to the last thread of their playoff hopes with a 4-7 record.
In doing so, Burrow, who is having an MVP-caliber season, Chase, who leads all receivers in nearly every category, and Higgins, who has looked impressive when he’s been healthy, are all being wasted.
Burrow’s abilities don’t come from an endless well. One day, he will hit a wall, and if the Bengals don’t do everything they possibly can to win a Super Bowl before that day comes, then…. well, we’ve seen that play out before.
It would be a miracle if the Bengals were able to salvage something from this train wreck of a season, but the defense isn’t going to magically change overnight if the coaching staff and the front office don’t make changes.
Expect more of the same.
It’s very unfortunate that Higgins’ final season in Cincinnati was this one.
