Fantasy football managers who got their hopes up about the rest-of-season outlook for Cincinnati Bengals WR Tee Higgins following his stellar performance against the Buffalo Bills in Week 9 were quickly disappointed when he missed Sunday’s game against the Houston Texans with a hamstring injury.
Since the Bengals are on a short week heading into their Thursday Night Football matchup against the Baltimore Ravens, is Higgins in danger of missing a second straight game while dealing with this injury?
Latest Injury Update on Tee Higgins
According to a recent report from ESPN’s Adam Schefter, Higgins is considered unlikely to play against the Ravens in Week 11 while trying to recover from a hamstring injury. Higgins sustained the hamstring injury during Wednesday’s practice last week, which saw him quickly go from a non-participant in Thursday’s practice to being ruled out against the Texans.
According to the Bengals injury report on Monday, Higgins was listed as a DNP, which doesn’t bode well for his status heading into Thursday night.
Will Higgins Play This Week?
When you combine Schefter’s tweet and Monday’s injury report, Higgins certainly doesn’t feel like a great bet to return to the field in Week 11. The short week of practice certainly isn’t doing him any favors either, which gives him significantly fewer days to recover from his hamstring injury.
MORE: Fantasy Football IR Week 11 Injury Report
If Higgins doesn’t get back on the practice field on Tuesday or Wednesday, then expect him to be officially ruled out for Thursday within the next 48 hours.
What Does This Mean for Ja’Marr Chase’s Fantasy Ranking?
Normally, an injury to Higgins would likely give Ja’Marr Chase an immediate fantasy bump in the weekly rankings into WR1 overall consideration. The expectation would be that he sees additional targets if Higgins is out of the lineup. In fact, we saw how that played out with Chase going for 124 yards and a score on five receptions this past Sunday against the Texans with Higgins out.
However, with Chase also dinged up in recent weeks with a back injury, I’m not sure an inactive Higgins would give Chase a huge boost for fantasy purposes. Other players who might get a slight bump in the fantasy rankings if Higgins were to miss Thursday’s game would be Tyler Boyd, Trenton Irwin, Tanner Hudson, and Irv Smith Jr.
Higgins got off to a painfully slow start for fantasy managers this season, failing to catch a single pass in the season opener. His slow start continued when he suffered a rib injury against the Tennessee Titans, which forced him to miss a game and see a reduced role over the next two games while battling through the injury.
Ultimately, Higgins’ eight catches for 110 yards against Buffalo in Week 9 is what fantasy managers expected when they drafted him in the second or third round of drafts before the season.
Higgins can be a game-changer for your fantasy season if he can build off his latest encouraging performance, but taking a lingering injury into a matchup against one of the best defenses in the league doesn’t exactly scream a high fantasy ceiling. If Higgins is active, he’s outside of my top 35 at the WR position in Week 11.
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