Sports
Cincinnati Bengals Betting Big: Can They Keep Tee Higgins?
The Cincinnati Bengals know what they have in Tee Higgins. The hard part will be keeping him.
Since coming into the NFL in 2020 as Cincinnati’s second-round pick behind No. 1 selection Joe Burrow, the explosive wide receiver has made a home with the Bengals as one of the most reliable weapons in a vaunted offense.
Higgins is coming off a season in which he caught 73 passes for 911 yards and a career-best 10 touchdowns. His best seasons came in 2021 and 2022 when he caught 74 passes each season, went over 1,000 yards receiving each year and totaled 13 touchdowns in the two years.
The Bengals advanced to Super Bowl LVI in 2021 and returned to the AFC Championship the next season, only to lose on a last-second field goal to the Chiefs.
The Bengals know full well that their offense reaches new heights when Higgins joins Burrow and star receiver Ja’Marr Chase on the field together. Higgins makes the Bengals more dynamic, and Burrow and Chase make Higgins—one of the best downfield receivers in the game—more dangerous.
It’s a marriage that benefits both sides.
There’s a blueprint already in place for the Bengals to follow in terms of structuring their offense around a star quarterback and multiple weapons on massive contracts.
The Miami Dolphins pulled it off when they signed Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle around Tua Tagovailoa. More recently—and more notably—the Philadelphia Eagles won a Super Bowl with star receivers A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith and running back Saquon Barkley supporting quarterback Jalen Hurts.
Tee Higgins can get his money anywhere if the Bengals allow him to hit free agency. But that’s almost certainly not going to happen this season. The Bengals are expected to hit Higgins with a franchise tag while simultaneously working out a long-term, multi-year deal with the sixth-year receiver out of Clemson.
The tag this year would be much different than the one placed on him last offseason. That tag was with the intention of having him play on a $21.8 million franchise tender for one season.
This one is to ensure the Bengals get compensation through a trade if a deal can’t be reached. All signs from the Bengals’ front office so far indicate that a framework is in place to get a deal done.
“We want a long-term deal with Tee,” Bengals director of player personnel Duke Tobin said Tuesday. “We’re going through the negotiation process, the details of which I’m not going to share.”
Tobin may not want to share the numbers that have been thrown out there, but they are $28 million to $30 million per season over three or four years, with guaranteed money anywhere between $75 million and $90 million.
The Bengals are trying to get a deal done with Chase that will likely reach $40 million per season with a guarantee north of $100 million, shattering the $35 million annual average of Minnesota star receiver Justin Jefferson last spring. With the NFL cap approaching $280 million, the Bengals believe they have the ability to do both comfortably.
Ever since Burrow came out publicly after a December win in Dallas and said he has every reason to think the team can keep Higgins, there’s been hope the two sides can come together. That hope was strengthened when Higgins fired his agent, David Mulugheta of Athletes First, and went with Rocky Arcenaux, the New Orleans-based agent who also represents Chase.
Burrow wants badly to win now and get back to the Super Bowl that he narrowly missed winning in 2021.
“Urgency is as high as it could get,” Tobin said. “That’s every offseason, though. You know, when you’re a bad football team trying to get to the competitive level, there’s high urgency. When you’re what I consider a high-level football team—and that’s what I consider us—you guys can scoff at it, but I consider us a very high-level football team.
“We’re trying to maximize our guys, and when you have Joe Burrow, you’re trying to fit it around him and give him the best chance to have a Hall of Fame career, and he’s certainly capable of that.”
The Bengals insist this offseason isn’t the first time they’ve made a genuine effort to sign the receiver who would almost immediately become the best free agent on the market. But Tobin says this might be the best progress the team has made.
“We’ve tried to make a lot of runs at Tee. Maybe this is the year,” Tobin said. “He would be valued by other teams, and they sense he’s close to free agency, and those guys don’t get to free agency. Maybe that bids him up, I don’t know. We’re trying to reward him for what he’s done and what we think he will do going forward for us.”
Sports
Report: Tigers fired Gabe Alvarez over harassment claim
Erie SeaWolves manager Gabe Alvarez watches warm-ups prior to a game with the Binghamton Rumble Ponies at UPMC Park in Erie on July 13, 2022.
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The Detroit Tigers fired Triple-A manager Gabe Alvarez after an investigation into alleged harassment claims by a female employee, The Athletic reported Wednesday.
The Tigers announced Tuesday that Alvarez’s contract had been terminated due to an undisclosed “violation of club policy.”
Alvarez, 52, was in his second season as manager of the Toledo Mud Hens, who were 17-16 under his leadership.
Sources told The Athletic that Alvarez was fired following a human resources investigation into the complaint.
Neither the Tigers nor Alvarez and his representatives responded to The Athletic’s requests for comment.
A major leaguer for parts of three seasons, Alvarez was a career .222 hitter with seven home runs and 33 RBIs over 92 games for the Tigers (1998-2000) and San Diego Padres (2000). During nine seasons in the minor leagues, Alvarez batted .278 with 114 home runs.
A second-round pick out of Southern California in 1995, Alvarez served as an assistant coach at his alma mater starting in 2010. He was hired by the Tigers to be the manager at Double-A Erie starting in the 2022 season and was promoted to manager at Toledo in October of 2024.
–Field Level Media
Sports
No close shaves for Cameron Young with Quail Hollow up next
May 3, 2026; Miami, Florida, USA; Cameron Young watches his tee shot on the 11th hole during the final round of the Cadillac Championship golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Romance-Imagn Images Cameron Young might be the hottest golfer on the PGA Tour with two victories and two other top-five finishes in his past five events.
And the World No. 3 is not interested in changing much during a hot streak, including whether it’s time to shave his beard.
“Yeah, I don’t think it’s coming off. I’m kind of afraid to see what I might look like without it,” said Young, who turns 29 on Thursday. “It’s been a couple years now and, yeah, I don’t know, we weren’t allowed to have a beard in college, so it was one of those things, as soon as I was allowed to, I just did it for no reason, other than that.
“Yeah, it’s been there since. Between that and not having to deal with it on a daily basis, it’s kind of lower maintenance and I’ve grown accustomed to the way I look with it.”
Young went to college at Wake Forest, located approximately 90 miles from Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte where he will tee it up in the Truist Championship, beginning Thursday.
“Always nice coming back to North Carolina and especially here,” Young said. “I mean, this is a top-notch golf course facility and tournament. I always look forward to coming back here. It’s quite a challenge, so I really look forward to the challenge of this golf course.”
Young tied for second at Quail Hollow in 2022 before tying for 59th the next year and tying for 34th in 2024. He bounced back to tie for seventh last year.
He figures to be a contender at Quail Hollow this week after winning last week’s Cadillac Championship by a mammoth six strokes. He posted a 19-under 269 at Trump National Doral’s Blue Monster Course outside Miami, with President Trump in attendance.
“Last week was a really good week,” Young said. “I feel like a lot of pieces came together pretty well. Yeah, difficult golf course, kind of an atypical week with the President around, just some different things that go on with that piece of it. But I feel like I did a really good job just staying where I was and doing my job. Yeah, very pleased with the outcome.”
Young’s strong year leaves him only behind No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and No. 2 Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland in the rankings. It also has increased his own notoriety but he said handling the rise in outer noise isn’t as challenging as maintaining his own mental game.
“Yeah, it really hasn’t been too different, in my opinion,” Young said. “I do a few more things like this (press conference), but most of the noise and the noise that’s probably more difficult to deal with is the noise in your own head.
“So to me that’s where a lot of my time is spent. … Those World Rankings are based in the past. It’s a good indicator of how you’ve played recently or whatever it is, but that No. 3 next to my name in the World Ranking doesn’t give me one thing this week. Doesn’t give me one thing next week.”
–Field Level Media
Sports
Ty France comes through as Padres knock off Giants
May 6, 2026; San Francisco, California, USA; San Francisco Giants shortstop Willy Adames (left) gets the force out at second base ahead of San Diego Padres right fielder Nick Castellanos (right) during the fifth inning at Oracle Park. Mandatory Credit: Scott Marshall-Imagn Images Ty France broke a seventh-inning tie with a two-run, pinch-hit triple, Xander Bogaerts added a two-run homer in the eighth, and the San Diego Padres captured a road series win over the San Francisco Giants with a 5-1 victory Wednesday afternoon.
After taking over from opener Bradgley Rodriguez, Matt Waldron (1-1) threw five one-run innings for his first win of the season, propelling San Diego to a second straight triumph after a series-opening defeat on Monday.
After offsetting solo homers by the Padres’ Gavin Sheets, his fifth of the season, and Giants’ Rafael Devers, his third, the Padres took advantage of an inning-opening throwing error by San Francisco third baseman Matt Chapman to grab the lead for good in the seventh.
Giants starter Adrian Houser (0-4) was pulled at that point, then watched as Keaton Winn walked Ramon Laureano.
Winn got two outs as the runners reached second and third, before France greeted Matt Gage with a flyball down the right-field line that barely eluded a diving Jesus Rodriguez, scoring Fernando Tatis Jr. and Laureano.
The triple was France’s second of the year. He’d totaled just four in his first seven major-league seasons.
Bogaerts’ homer, his second of the series and seventh of the season, came two batters after Ryan Walker walked Manny Machado to lead off the eighth.
After Rodriguez needed just seven pitches to set down the Giants in order in the first, Waldron allowed just Devers’ homer and one other hit in his five innings. He struck out seven and did not walk anyone.
Adrian Morejon and Mason Miller, making his first appearance of the series, combined for six strikeouts over the final three innings, allowing just one hit.
Nick Castellanos had two hits for the Padres, who out-hit the Giants 6-3.
Rodriguez went 2-for-3 with a pair of singles for San Francisco, which has lost eight of its last nine.
Houser was charged with two runs (one earned) on three hits over six innings. He walked one and struck out three.
-Field Level Media
Report: Tigers fired Gabe Alvarez over harassment claim
No close shaves for Cameron Young with Quail Hollow up next
