“He got better in year one to year two when the ball was in the air,” Walters said. “He was going up and attacking the ball and not getting pushed off his spot. Attack it like a rebound. All season he did that making explosive plays. He went over one of the top corners in the league and probably got away with something there, but it’s a physical game and he made a play.”
The selection of Higgins with the 33rd pick amplified two old saws about the draft.
1.) Stick to your grades. Take the best player, not the neediest position, if the grade is high enough.
2.) The collaboration of scouts and coaches can only enhance the process.
It will be recalled heading into the Burrow draft the Bengals biggest need was linebacker. They not only benefitted from it being Burrow’s year, but it was also a deep draft for backers.
The Bengals had first-round grades galore on Higgins. Enough that he was in the top half of the second part of the first round on their board. While the Bengals didn’t have Wyoming linebacker Logan Wilson in the first round, they thought highly enough of him to make them wonder if they should take him at No. 33.
In the end, it came down to the grade. While they doubted Wilson would last to the top of the third round, they also thought the backer corps was deep enough to warrant taking a player with Higgins’ healthy first -round grade.
Mike Potts, the Bengals director of college scouting who followed Higgins at Clemson, thought he had many of the similarities Burrow brought to the draft board: Good person, good teammate, extremely tough, a big performer on the biggest of stages.
Once Potts and the scouts were able to fill in the coaches on Higgins’ enormous abilities during the spring, it was pretty much a draft room sweep. As Friday wore on in the first full day of the Age of Joe, the Bengals weren’t budging from the top spot in the second round with a mid-first round pick staring at them.
And when Wilson made it through the New England-Kansas City gauntlet late in the second round to reach them at No. 65, it was the best of both worlds.
“(Higgins) is tough, he played hurt, he made plays, he did a good job,” Walters said. “But Tee’s the kind of guy who is always looking to get better. He wants to take the next step.”
That means getting back to start training camp on the way back to the Super Bowl.
“That’s the plan,” Higgins said.