Zac Taylor, Joe Burrow Aligned on Tee Higgins’s Future With the Bengals

Cincinnati’s coach would like to keep his offensive stars together. Plus, more on Ladd McConkey, Cam Ward and Carson Wentz in Albert Breer’s Tuesday notes.

The Bengals are going to have to dig deep into their pockets to sign both Higgins and Chase this NFL offseason. / Joseph Maiorana-Imagn Images

Sixteen NFL regular-season games left. Twenty-nine games total. Let’s dig in …

• Joe Burrow said it a couple weeks back.

And now his head coach is echoing him.

An hour or so after the Cincinnati Bengals’ breakneck overtime win over the Denver Broncos on Saturday night, I talked to Zac Taylor about the importance, regardless of how Week 18 plays out, of keeping Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins together in Cincinnati. He didn’t mince words about his preference.

“Absolutely,” he says before I could even finish the question. “We know what we’ve got with those guys on the field. Those guys want to be here. And we want them here. Those are offseason conversations to be had, of course, but we know what type of team we have when we got those guys playing together.”

Chase, as I’ve said all year, is an open-and-shut case. He’s 24 years old, and a fierce competitor who matches Burrow as a winner. He’s also one of the best receivers to come into the NFL in the past decade, on the level of his LSU teammate Justin Jefferson, and is proving it this year. He’s tracking to become the fifth receiver to win the triple crown in the Super Bowl era with 117 catches for 1,612 yards and 16 touchdowns—that’s eight catches, 133 yards and four touchdowns more than anyone else in the NFL.

“When we drafted him, he said, I’m going to break every record they got,” Taylor says. “Today, he broke our franchise record for catches in a single season—he has 117 receptions, breaking T. J. Houshmandzadeh’s mark of 114. He bet on himself this year, and I’d say it’s paid off for him.”

Paying Higgins, of course, is more complicated.

But similar to Chase, Higgins is making himself more money, particularly with days like he had Saturday, where beyond the stat line (11 catches, 131 yards, three touchdowns), his biggest plays came in the biggest moments, not the least of which was his 31-yard toe-tapper in OT.

Now, I’ve said in the past that the right course of action, as I saw it, was to sign Chase and let Higgins walk. But after seeing things play out this year, I’m rethinking that—and starting to see this as a Marvin Harrison–Reggie Wayne situation, where the Indianapolis Colts once saw their best course of action being to keep their general quarterback happy and their offense humming, with real resolve to just figure out the rest.

And I can see where Taylor is seeing things that way now, too.

---

• Speaking of record-breaking receivers—there’s some cool nuance to Ladd McConkey setting some Los Angeles Chargers rookie records for receptions (77) and yards (1,054) Saturday.

Both of those marks previously belonged to Keenan Allen, who set them at 71 receptions and 1,046 yards in 2013. Allen, of course, was traded to the Chicago Bears in April for a fourth-round pick, 110th overall. The Chargers then packaged that pick with the 37th choice to move up to 34 to select McConkey—so Allen was effectively part of landing the Georgia product. But that’s not all. As part of the deal, the Chargers got the 137th pick, a fifth-rounder, which they used to take Maryland CB Tarheeb Still, who leads the team with four picks.

And if you want to take this whole thing to another level, you can look at how Jim Harbaugh, GM Joe Hortiz and their staffs have worked together to leverage the kind of advantage that Pete Carroll used to build a Goliath in Seattle years ago—with a staff full of guys who’d worked, coached and recruited at the college level for years.

I’ve heard in coaching the 2021 Orange Bowl, where Georgia routed Michigan, Harbaugh’s Wolverines staff, through their study, came away impressed with the then-redshirt freshman McConkey (who they’d hold to a single catch), resolving to keep an eye on him thereafter. Meanwhile, Still was with Chargers linebacker NaVorro Bowman at Maryland in 2023. And Still’s fellow fifth-rounder, Cam Hart, another corner the team believes has a bright future, played for Chargers safeties coach Chris O’Leary at Notre Dame.

O’Leary, of course, was also in South Bend with first-rounder Joe Alt, in case the Chargers needed any more info on the fifth pick (though I don’t think that one was hard for them).

Put all this together, and Harbaugh and Hortiz have an operation that’s really humming right now—getting the most out of guys such as Justin Herbert and Derwin James, while developing a layer of young talent that they had institutional intelligence beforehand. Which means maybe 10 or 11 wins this year really is just the start.

---

• I’m planning on digging a little more into this, but I wanted to at least throw my two cents in on the Cam Ward situation. In case you missed it, the University of Miami quarterback played the first half of the Pop-Tarts Bowl against Iowa State, throwing for 190 yards and three touchdowns on 12-of-19 passing, as the Canes took a 31–28 lead into the break. The third stat broke Case Keenum’s Division I record of 155 career touchdown passes.

Then, Ward sat. Miami lost. And afterward, coach Mario Cristobal declined to explain why his Heisman Trophy finalist only played half the game, calling the matter “private.”

O.K., so to me, Ward sitting out the second half was planned, and his teammates and coaches knew, and the staff had a chance to get backup Emory Williams ready to compete, too, and the other players prepared to play with him. It’s the reality of college football these days, and these bowl games are exhibitions that coaches often use to get the returning players ready for the next year anyway. In that case, Cristobal should’ve explained it, and it’s a one-day story.

Instead, Cristobal left open the possibility that Ward made this decision on the fly, which, to me, is something else entirely. That would matter to NFL teams. For one, as I see it, players owe it to each other to be clear on their plans and play for one another. And while these are business decisions, a fair question for a scout would be how Ward handles a contract year in the NFL?

Then, there’s the simple fact that he’s a quarterback. Others around him are counting on him to be able to do their jobs at a certain level, and in removing himself from the game he undermined them. This is like a receiver or a corner sitting down. That position is held to a different standard and, based on how they’re drafted and paid, rightfully so.

And all this only adds to what was a bit of a circus while Ward was in the transfer portal last year. There, very clearly, is a lot for NFL teams to work through on his decision.

---

• While we’re there, the Las Vegas Raiders and New York Giants were out in force to check out both Ward and Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders.

New York had GM Joe Schoen and director of player personnel Tim McDonnell at the Pop-Tarts Bowl, and assistant GM Brandon Brown, assistant director of player personnel Dennis Hickey and special assistant to the GM Jessie Armstead to see Sanders at the Alamo Bowl. Meanwhile, Vegas assistant GM Champ Kelly was at the Pop-Tarts Bowl, and college scouting director Brandon Yeargan was at the Alamo Bowl.

The Giants, in particular, have been aggressive in scouting this year’s class. They got multiple live exposures from top-level execs on six top quarterback prospects—Ward, Sanders, Texas’s Quinn Ewers, Georgia’s Carson Beck, Alabama’s Jalen Milroe and Ole Miss’s Jaxson Dart—before bowl season even began.

---

Nagy has won two Super Bowls with the Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes since getting fired by the Bears. / Denny Medley-Imagn Images

• In the aftermath of the Bears’ unraveling, I think it’s past time to take a bit of a harder look at Matt Nagy, and whether the Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator merits a second look.

He was 34–31 as the Bears head coach. That’s markedly better than Marc Trestman (13–19) and John Fox (14–34) before him, and Matt Eberflus (14–32) after him. It also puts him with Lovie Smith as the only two Chicago coaches post-Mike Ditka to have winning records running George Halas’s franchise. Ditka, Smith and Nagy, by the way, are the only three with winning records since Halas himself stepped down in 1967.

Then, there’s that he’s won two Super Bowls with the Chiefs since, was on the ground floor of Patrick Mahomes’s development in Kansas City and got more out of Mitch Trubisky, the quarterback he inherited in Chicago, than anyone else.

Now, that’s not in any way to say he did everything right in Chicago. I think he’d tell you himself that he didn’t—otherwise, he might still be there. But given the thirst there is out there for quarterback-adjacent head coaches who can build an offense, and the experience that Nagy has, both as an assistant and a head coach, you might think there’d be a second shot out for him somewhere. We’ll see if he gets one, or at least a look, in January.

• I told Zach Ertz, who I’ve known for a while now, how he looked rejuvenated Sunday night—playing faster and with more energy than I thought he had in years. Last year, he asked for his release from Arizona after going on IR with a quad injury. Two months later, in the run-up to the NFC title game, he hooked on with the Detroit Lions, with plans for the team to activate him if it made the Super Bowl (obviously, that didn’t happen).

So going into 2024, he faced an uncertain football future, which is why he wanted to go with someone he could trust. That someone wound up being first-year Washington Commanders OC Kliff Kingsbury, who he’d been with for a season and a half in Arizona. Fair to say, everything since, right up to Sunday’s game-winning touchdown, has worked out. And Ertz agreed that he has found new life in D.C.

“For sure,” he says. “The last two years in Arizona were really difficult, obviously getting hurt and then everything happened last year with the release and playing in that system. It was tough for me mentally. I didn’t know what was going to happen after getting released. It took a while to get picked up. I really didn’t know what was going to happen with my career. Only thing I told my agent was I want to go to a place that believes in me again.

“No one has really believed in me more than Frank Reich, but Kliff has been top two in guys that believe in me and what I bring to a team. Being back with him has been phenomenal. I didn’t really know what I was getting into with D.Q. [Dan Quinn]. From the moment I got here, I can’t say enough good things. The culture, the guys they have brought in, the process, guys that have the same priorities as me, it’s just been so fun.

“They take such good care of me to make sure I’m at my best, especially at this time of the year. It’s not all about me, but I do feel rejuvenated. I do feel younger. I do feel as explosive as I did a few years ago just because I’m around guys that truly believe in me and that’s when I play my best."

The upshot of it for Washington going forward? They’ll have over $100 million to spend this offseason, and it’s fair to say that guys such as Ertz saying things like this will help make D.C. a more appealing destination for free agents than it’s been in years.

---

• Given the revival of guys such as Geno Smith in 2022, Baker Mayfield in ’23, and Sam Darnold this year, an interesting twist on Week 18 will be the ’25 auditions that Carson Wentz and Trubisky get to put on, with both set to play a good amount of snaps this weekend for the Chiefs and Buffalo Bills, respectively.

Both have gotten the benefit of getting to be in quality programs with quality coaches—similar to what Darnold had last year in San Francisco. So at the very least, if they put good tape out there, it could intrigue someone to see them as bridge-quarterback options.

Buffalo coach Sean McDermott has said in the past that he believes Trubisky can be a starter, and Kansas City’s Andy Reid chimed in with similar thoughts on Wentz this week.

“I’m one of his biggest fans,” Reid said. “I liked him coming out. I liked what he did before he was banged up there in Philly, and I liked what I saw from him last year for sure with his start with the [Los Angeles] Rams. And I like what I’ve seen here. I’m glad I’ve had the opportunity to see him here. Selfishly, I’d like to keep him, but I don’t think that’s going to be possible. He should be starting in the league somewhere; that’s what he should be doing.

“By his ability and the way he goes about his business, he’s so structured and disciplined in his study habits and working out, all those things are just top-notch.”

One swing factor against the Denver Broncos for Wentz, one way or the other, is which version of the Chiefs’ offensive line is trotted out there in front of him.

---

Purdy injured his elbow in the 49ers’ loss to the Lions on Monday night. / Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

• Obviously, Brock Purdy’s injury situation could impact the San Francisco 49ers’ approach to the looming contract negotiation with their quarterback. That his UCL is intact is great news. But anything involving a quarterback’s throwing elbow is worth keeping an eye on, and the fact that Purdy himself said it’s a nerve issue is concerning.

---

• Along those lines, it was good to see the Lions make it out of San Francisco relatively unscathed. And getting linebacker Jalen Reeves-Maybin back—he played 40 snaps—is a reminder of the parade of guys who could return to the lineup over the next month or so, with Alex Anzalone, David Montgomery and, yes, Aidan Hutchinson among the guys who could be back at some point between now and Super Bowl Sunday, should Dan Campbell’s crew make it that far.

---

• The New England Patriots doing Yannick Ngakoue a solid and letting him go creates an interesting circumstance this week, where teams could claim him on waivers just to prevent him from going somewhere else. If you’re the Philadelphia Eagles, for example, would you throw a claim in there knowing Detroit could really use him, and you’re ahead of the Lions in the order? It’s something, at least, to think about.