The Pittsburgh Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals are gearing up for a huge divisional showdown in Week 16 that will surely have some huge playoff repercussions. Neither team will be fully healthy in this game, but it looks like Mike Tomlin has his eye on Tee Higgins as a guy who could end up making a big impact on this game.
While neither squad will have their starting quarterbacks available for this one, Jake Browning has been holding his own for the Bengals in recent outings. Of course, Browning won’t have Ja’Marr Chase at his disposal for this game, which means that Higgins will likely get the lion’s share of Cincy’s targets. With that in mind, Tomlin took a second to explain why Higgins is so tough for opposing teams to cover.
“Combat catches. He gets down the grass in a one-on-one circumstance, and you can see it in terms of some of the plays he made last week against the Minnesota Vikings. I mean that big-time play he made in a 2-minute drill before halftime, that big-time play he made at the end of the game. He’s a ‘small forward,’ as we say in this thing. He is a one-on-one matchup guy, he’s a 50-50 ball guy. You know, we use those terms, 50-50 ball guy. Under ideal circumstances, it’s 50-50. He catches more than his share. And that’s the skill-set.” – Mike Tomlin, Steelers.com
Higgins has had a fairly disappointing season by his standards, as the Bengals offensive woes have hit him pretty hard. However, he showed what he was capable of in Cincy’s Week 15 win over the Minnesota Vikings, as he hauled in four passes for 61 yards and a pair of touchdowns, with the second score seeing him pull off an extremely acrobatic move to get the ball over the goal line.
Higgins stepped up with Chase being forced out of that game early due to the shoulder injury he is still dealing with, and he will have to do it again against a tough Steelers secondary. The Steelers are going to be without some key pieces on defense in this one, though, which may make their coverage of Higgins the most important factor in determining who comes out on top in this huge game.
