Tee Higgins — Week 3: Six Catches and a Tying Touchdown
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Monday, Sep 28
Higgins caught 6 of 7 targets for 90 yards and 4 first downs, including the 28-yard touchdown with 39 seconds left in the half that tied it at 17 and a 17-yard catch on third and ten on the drive to Cincinnati's last touchdown. His targets were worth plus 9.9 expected points, the most of any player thrown to in the game, in a 30–27 loss to the Steelers.
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17 to 10, Steelers, 39 seconds left in the second quarter, first and 10 at the Pittsburgh 28. Joe Burrow threw deep right to Tee Higgins, 28 yards in the air, touchdown. +4.8 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position — and 12.4 points of win probability, the chance of winning the game after the play against before it. The extra point tied it at 17, and that was the score at halftime. The drive had begun at the Cincinnati 47 with a minute 40 left, after a Cincinnati interception.
The line: seven targets, six catches, 90 yards, one touchdown, four first downs, +9.9 expected points on his targets, the highest figure for any player thrown to on either team. 92 air yards, seven after the catch. The catches went 10, 28, 13, 14, 17 eight. The 10 was second and eight at the Pittsburgh 26 in the first quarter, a first down on the drive that ended in Ja'Marr Chase's touchdown. The 14 and the 17 came on one drive late in the third quarter, Bengals down 24 to 20: 14 over the short middle to midfield on first down, then, three snaps later, third and 10 at the 50, short left to the Pittsburgh 33, +2.5 expected points and 12.6 points of win probability. That drive ended with Mike Gesicki's touchdown on fourth and two, and the Bengals led 27 to 24. The one incompletion was third and nine at the Pittsburgh 20 in the third quarter, and Cincinnati kicked a field goal. A 13-yard catch on third and four in the second quarter came back on an illegal formation penalty against Cincinnati; the third and nine after it came up four yards short, and the Bengals kicked from 50. Two targets before halftime, five after.
Seven targets were second on the Bengals to Chase's 12, 19 percent of Burrow's 37 throws, and his 90 yards were second in the game to Chase's 98.
Back in June the preview's read on Higgins was that his season had rested on touchdowns — 11 on 59 catches — and that without them he was a 56-yard-a-game receiver on an 18 percent target share. The first two games ran the other way: no touchdowns, a 33-yard catch reversed on a challenge in Week 1, and 10 targets for 95 yards in Week 2. Sunday brought the first touchdown. Three games: 23 targets, 14 catches, 244 yards, one touchdown — about 81 yards a game, well above the 56 the preview found underneath last season's scoring. Three games settle little, and the yards so far are the part the preview doubted. Cincinnati is home to the Jaguars on Sunday the fourth.
_Data via nflverse._
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