Sleeper NFL posed a simple question: how many NFL teams would Tee Higgins be the No. 1 receiver for? PFSN analyst Jacob Infante put a number on it, and it lands higher than most would guess.
“I might be a little bit more bullish on Higgins than others, but I think he would be the wide receiver one,” Infante said on today’s Football Debate Club. “I had exactly 16 teams where he’d be the top receiver.”
16 Teams Where Tee Higgins Is WR1
Sixteen of 32 is half the league, and Infante did not pretend the bar was uniform across that group. “That includes some teams where maybe the wide receiver one’s a little bit unproven, it’s a rookie, or it’s somebody who has elite potential but hasn’t proven it yet,” he said.
The production backs the case. Higgins has caught 21 touchdowns over the last two seasons, and he did it while missing time in both. “You’re looking at a guy who’s had 21 receiving touchdowns over the last two seasons, and that’s while missing a combined 7 games in that time,” Infante said.
The context makes the number louder. Higgins played 12 games in 2024 and 15 in 2025, and for the majority of last season, he caught passes from backup Jake Browning rather than Joe Burrow, who missed nine games after turf toe surgery. Higgins still posted 11 scores, a career high. Across his career, his per-17-game pace clears 1,000 yards, the kind of steady volume that travels.
His profile travels too. At 6-foot-4, Higgins wins the throws that decide drives. “He’s a big body. He’s a reliable possession receiver. He’s somebody who can win above the rim. He’s a really talented wide receiver,” Infante said.
Why Tee Higgins Stays a No. 2 in Cincinnati
The reason Higgins keeps getting framed as a hypothetical No. 1 is the player lined up across from him. Ja’Marr Chase is the WR1 in Cincinnati and one of the best in football, which fixes Higgins as a No. 2 no matter how productive he is. The Bengals made that arrangement permanent in March 2025, signing Higgins to a four-year, $115 million extension after two straight franchise tags.
That money is the answer to the trade rumors, and it is why the “what if he left” conversation stays theoretical. Infante’s verdict draws the line cleanly between very good and great. “I don’t think he’s elite, but I do think he’s better than half, exactly half the wide receiver ones out there,” he said.
It is a fair place to land. Higgins is not a target hog who bends a defense the way the league’s top handful of receivers do, and his injury history is real. But a contested-catch specialist with back-to-back double-digit touchdown seasons would headline a lot of receiver rooms, which is exactly Infante’s point.
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The number could climb in 2026. A healthy Burrow throwing a full season to Higgins and Chase should push the counting stats back toward where they sat before injuries scrambled the last two years. The debate over how many teams would take Higgins as their No. 1 will keep running, but Cincinnati already answered the only version that mattered to them. They paid him to stay a No. 2.
