Fans whose favorite NFL teams have a young quarterback and need reliable receiving help have been eyeing one name for the past few months. Tee Higgins, who has 34 touchdown catches over five seasons with the Bengals, looms as the primary target for any team hoping to land a top wide receiver in free agency. Wideouts in their mid-20s with Higgins' production and talent don't often hit the market, but the combination of a pending Ja'Marr Chase deal, the need to rebuild on defense and the cost of a second franchise tag might push Cincinnati's star to the open market. If Higgins gets there, he won't lack for suitors.
What's more fascinating, perhaps, is what looms behind Higgins. This is an offseason in which there could be a potentially unprecedented amount of veteran wideout help available, via the trade market or in free agency. Running through the list of potential options, I see players who have combined for 40 Pro Bowl appearances and seven wide receivers who have been a first-team All-Pro during their careers.
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What does that market look like? How many of those players will actually come available? And where might they end up going? Let's run through the logjam of trade options, cut candidates and unrestricted free agents, all of whom have already played through multiple NFL contracts. There's still a lot of uncertainty surrounding who goes where, but if teams think they're not going to be able to add Higgins, expect them to look closely at assistance from one of these veterans:
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Two candidates to be traded
Four players who could get released
Six free agents hitting the market
Best of the rest: Five under-the-radar WRs
Trade candidates
Tyreek Hill, Dolphins
2024 stats: 81 catches, 959 yards, 6 TDs
Age entering 2025 season: 31
The Dolphins are apparently a forgiving franchise. When Anthony Richardson asked out of a game in October because he was tired, the Colts quarterback was excoriated and benched for two games. In December, when 49ers linebacker De'Vondre Campbell refused to enter a game in the second half after he was taken out of the starting lineup, coach Kyle Shanahan and general manager John Lynch got him out of the building and suspended him for the final three games of the season.
But when Hill declined to play in the fourth quarter of Miami's Week 18 loss to the Jets, and after the game said, "I'm out," suggesting he wanted to play somewhere else? Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said it's not acceptable to leave the game and won't be tolerated in the future. Hill appears to have walked back his trade request, and the Dolphins appear to have forgiven their star for his indiscretions.
The Dolphins could welcome Hill back, but playing down his Week 18 outburst also might be a way to sustain some semblance of trade value for the eight-time Pro Bowler, who missed out on that honor for the first time in 2024. General manager Chris Grier cut veterans Raheem Mostert, Durham Smythe and Kendall Fuller last week to help create cap space, and Hill's end-of-season statements have surely led the organization to consider whether he is part of its future.