NFL Insider on Tee Higgins Coming to Patriots: ‘I don’t think he’ll come here.’
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The New England Patriots head into this offseason with one big need, and the hope is that they’ll come out of this offseason with an explosive wideout having been added to their offense.
Given what Drake Maye was able to do with what little they had last year was fairly impressive, especially considering how limited that group was. Maye managed to go out and put up 2276 yards while throwing 15 touchdowns, despite not starting until Week 6 and missing time along the way having dealt with a couple of concussions during his rookie season.
The fact he threw that many touchdowns with the group that he had sort of falls under the radar, and it’s also a big reason why getting him some help this offseason is so important.
However, the problem the Patriots are potentially going to have is the fact there are a fair amount of teams out there with postseason aspirations who also need help at receiver. That’s also the reason Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer believes the it’s going to be difficult for the Patriots potentially trying to get someone like Cincinnati’s Tee Higgins to come to Foxboro.
Breer appeared on 98.5 The Sports Hub’s Zolak and Bertrand on Monday, and he said the Patriots are likely facing a tough challenge again this offseason in free agency.
“I still don’t like Tee Higgins to come here. I don’t,” said Breer. “Here’s the thing. They offered [Brandon] Aiyuk a better deal than Pittsburgh did. They offered Aiyuk a better deal than Cleveland did. If I remember right, again, I don’t have it in front of me, I know we talked about this before, but I think it was $32 million per on a four-year deal or he had a choice, or $30 million per year on It was a three-year deal.”
“He would rather go to Pittsburgh where the number was something like… It was a tick less than T.J. Watt because they wanted to keep him under T.J. Watt. It was like something like $27.8 or something like that. When you start to get up into that neighborhood, guys are going to… You have to way overspend to convince a guy not to like, ‘I’m going to take a little bit less and go contend.’ Buffalo has got some flexibility cap-wise now. If they go and make a competitive offer for Tee Higgins, why wouldn’t he go there?”
Marc Bertrand made an interesting point. Regardless of how things play out, the Patriots have to again be aggressive and force whoever they target to turn down a massive amount of money.
“My approach would be, we’re going to force him,” said Bertrand. “Fine, he doesn’t want to come here. Watch this. We’re going to make him turn down an absurd amount of money. And we’re going to do it. We’re going to try. The other part is not having fear of getting embarrassed when the player tells you no. Because this team has a real issue with players when they don’t want to come here.”
“They’ve got some fear of the embarrassment of being turned down by a player for football reasons. They can’t have that fear.”
Breer went on to say that he feels there’s an issue when it comes to Patriots owner Robert Kraft, and he believes that there’s a problem when it comes to letting his feeling with being “smarter than everyone else” get in the way with getting a deal done.
“I think there’s something else they need to get over, too. This fixation with winning the deal,” said Breer. “This fixation with being smarter than everybody else. I think that that totally exists with them. I don’t think that was just a Bill [Belichick] thing. I think that’s a Kraft thing, too, where it’s like, ‘We need to make sure that we’re not going to do bad business. It’s bad business to overpay for this. It’s bad business to overpay for that.'”
“I’m telling you, a lot of these owners, because their background is as businessmen, they’re almost more competitive about being profitable and being smart than they are about winning games. For a lot of owners, they got to get over that. They got to get over the idea, ‘Look, we got to pay a tax here because we’re not very good right now.'”
The Patriots could also be active in the trade market, which just saw the Rams add Cooper Kupp to the mix. The challenge then becomes what they’re willing to give up, which is tough because they also need their draft picks for positions like offensive tackle and building out other areas where currently they’re thin on the roster.
New England currently holds the fourth overall pick heading into April’s Draft, which is expected to be another pivotal one as first-year head coach Mike Vrabel tries to get this team back on track this offseason.
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