Joe Burrow gets candid on Tee Higgins' future with Bengals amid trade rumors surrounding star WR

Joe Burrow gave his comments after the Cincinnati Bengals franchise tagged Tee Higgins to bring back the wide receiver for one more year. He has been an important weapon for the quarterback, and speaking to ESPN the latter acknowledged as much. He said,

"Having him back this year obviously, I hope we're going to have him longer, but it's exciting for me to have him this year and then it's a nice little payday for him. Then hopefully he gets another one here soon."

Joe Burrow and Tee Higgins will both be looking to recapture their forms this year

Tee Higgins finished with just 656 yards last season, which was the worst of his career. After two straight 1,000 yards plus years, it was a sobering experience for him. Much of Tee Higgins' decreased production was because the injuries Joe Burrow faced through the league year.

The quarterback began the season with a calf injury and ended it with a wrist injury that curtailed his regular season prematurely. But the good news for Tee Higgins is that Joe Burrow seems excited and fired up about returning, saying,

"I'm excited about the challenge that we have. I'm excited about the challenge that I have coming back from injury."

Joe Burrow emphasized that he is keen to change the narrative that he is injury-prone, adding,

"When you're injured, your only rebuttal to the narrative is what you put on the field and how you produce, and when you're injured, there's no dialogue between the narrative and yourself. So I'm excited to kind of handle that in my own way and get back out there in a much better place."

Giving an update about his sitation, the Bengals quarterback said that by May he should be back for full contact training.

"I think middle of May is when I am expecting to kind of be cleared for full contact and everything. Over the next month [to] month and a half, we'll kind of decide all those things."

He is already back to lifting and over the next two months, he should be good to go. Joe Burrow explained,

"I can lift basically normally now, which I'm excited about. So the next two months, I'll basically be just doing what I've done for the last couple of years Just the 12 weeks of extra work in the rearview."

Tee Higgins will certainly be hoping the quarterback can come back firing into the new season so that he can get back to putting big numbers again.