Bengals predicted Tee Higgins replacement would give Cincinnati fans gray hairs

There's no other way to describe the way the Cincinnati Bengals' season ended other than as a gut punch. Of course, Zac Taylor's club did their part in what the team needed in order to sneak into the NFL Playoffs as the final wild card team in the AFC with a Saturday night win over the rival Steelers. However, one could argue that made it sting worse when the Broncos came out and dismantled the Chiefs backups to eliminate the Bengals from the postseason.

Unfortunately, Cincinnati might need to brace itself for another gut punch coming this offseason.

Wide receiver Tee Higgins has been a star that Bengals fans have fallen in love with for good reason since the organization selected him as a second-round pick in the 2020 draft. Higgins and Ja'Marr Chase have been electric as a duo with Joe Burrow. But Higgins, who played out this season on the franchise tag, is now set to hit free agency.

While Burrow and many fans have urged Cincinnati to simply find a way to re-sign Higgins while also locking up Chase to an extension this offseason, that seems improbable at best and impossible at worst, especially for a Bengals team with a plethora of defensive holes. So it's not surprising that ESPN's Ben Solak ($) predicted that Cincy would be priced out of the Higgins free agency market.

What is surprising and perhaps frustrating for Bengals fans is what the team could do to help replace Higgins, as Solak predicted for another NFL team this offseason.

Bengals predicted to help replace Tee Higgins with Kyle Pitts trade

When taking part in the offseason outlook for the Atlanta Falcons, Solak brought up tight end Kyle Pitts. The former first-round pick has been a headache who has never lived up to his potential in Atlanta. Now entering the final year of his contract, though, Solak believes the Falcons could trade him.

That's where the Bengals would come in as Solak predicted that the Bengals would trade a Day 3 pick to acquire Pitts.

Now, Solak alluded to the truth of the matter, which is that Pitts could potentially thrive with a change of scenery. The physical tools, namely the athleticism and movement ability for a player at his size and at tight end, could be better maximized in a different situation than the Falcons. After seeing what Mike Gesicki was able to do in Cincinnati, there's reason to believe Pitts could find himself with the Bengals.

At the same time, Pitts has been a connossieur of head-scratching plays and underperformance thus far in his career. There's also a risk that he just might not ever live up to his potential and the Bengals would be trading for a player who would endlessly frustrate fans in Cincy. Given the track record, that's the more realistic outcome, even if there is room for the aforementioned optimism.

Would that gamble be worth a Day 3 pick in a trade? You could definitely make that argument. However, when you say plainly that the Bengals would ostensibly be using a Pitts trade to replace Higgins, it feels a lot worse.