Tee Higgins gets brutally honest explaining decision to sign franchise tag, return for Bengals training camp

The last six months have been unlike any Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins has experienced. Getting hit with the franchise tag, requesting a trade, being away from the team he's been with for four years.

It was a lot, and it led to a lot of talk he could hear. Signing the tag a month before training camp even began was a way to take back some power and silence it all.

"Obviously I could've waited, but I just wanted to kill all the noise," Higgins told reporters Wednesday. "I was tired of everybody tweeting me and all the other bullsh-t.

"I just wanted to kill all that and just lock in."

Locked in is what Higgins looked like during Cincinnati's first training camp practice. While Ja'Marr Chase supported on an off day, Higgins, the longest-tenured receiver on the roster, led the position group in drills with Joe Burrow and his Slim Shady hairdo slinging him the pigskin.

In April, Higgins seemed resigned to the reality that he'd be in Cincinnati instead of getting a payday with another club. In his first time speaking back in the team facilities, he made an emphasis to point out the obvious: he's here now.

"I don't have a choice but to be happy," Higgins said. "If you're not happy playing this game, then you're gonna be miserable out there on the field. I look at this, man I'm out here, I'm blessed. God gave me the ability to be out here, and he gave me the chance of playing the league, and i just got to go make the best of it."

This didn't have to be how it went. The tag was obviously not what Higgins wanted to come out of this offseason, but with the July 15 deadline for an extension long passed, Higgins knew it was best for him to show up and get his work in.

He also didn't have to sign the tag until right before the season, like how his former teammate Jessie Bates III waited two years ago. But Bates couldn't turn down the money from the tag, and neither could Higgins. Knowing that money is secured upon signing, Higgins took initiative.

"There was a lot of talk back and forth with my agent, what I wanted to do," Higgins explained. "Obviously, the Bengals weren't making any moves other than obviously tagging me, but it was just like, I grew up with nothing at the end of the day. $21.8 (million], that's life-changing money, you know what I'm saying? I could live with that for the rest of my life if I wanted to, but obviously I wanted more and it didn't happen."

Each franchise tag saga features the same middle act of the players playing on the tag. Whether they holdout in the beginning, or re-sign with the team in the end is up to circumstance. Higgins ensured he'd set himself in the best possible way to play, and focus on what really matters to him.

"I made the decision. Sign and be here with my guys."

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