Player

Tee Higgins

WR · CIN Bengals

This shape of season is normally a tight end profile because it requires living on red-zone targets rather than route volume. For a wide receiver it signals extreme scoring efficiency on limited opportunity, which is genuinely a skill for a 6-foot-4 contested-catch specialist, but the six-season list also shows how rarely the shape repeats: the volume is not there to catch him if the touchdown rate drops.

FanIQ Research · August 30, 2026 · 7 facts, every one from the play-by-play

The touchdown season

Eleven touchdowns on 846 yards: a wide receiver season built almost entirely in the end zone.

Rare

WR seasons with 11+ receiving TDs on under 900 yards, 1999-2025

Player	Season	Yards	TD
Randy Moss	2004	767	13
Laurent Robinson	2011	858	11
James Jones	2012	784	14
Torrey Smith	2014	767	11
Davante Adams	2025	789	14
Tee Higgins	2025	846	11

In 27 seasons, a wide receiver has scored 11-plus touchdowns on fewer than 900 yards just six times, and two of them happened in 2025. Higgins built a WR16 fantasy season with nearly a third of his points coming from touchdowns alone. Nearly every other season shaped like this belongs to a tight end.

Why it matters. This shape of season is normally a tight end profile because it requires living on red-zone targets rather than route volume. For a wide receiver it signals extreme scoring efficiency on limited opportunity, which is genuinely a skill for a 6-foot-4 contested-catch specialist, but the six-season list also shows how rarely the shape repeats: the volume is not there to catch him if the touchdown rate drops.

A top-16 receiver on one target in six.

Anomaly

Target share of the 2025 top-16 PPR WRs (selected)

Player	PPR points	Target share
Jaxon Smith-Njigba	359.9	35.8%
Ja'Marr Chase	313.6	32.2%
Amon-Ra St. Brown	324.0	31.3%
Jameson Williams	219.9	18.5%
Tee Higgins	211.6	18.6%

Fourteen of the 2025 top-16 receivers needed at least a fifth of their team's targets, and most needed a quarter or more. Higgins finished WR16 on an 18.6 percent share, the second-thinnest in the group, because Chase absorbs a third of Cincinnati's throws before anyone else eats. He converted the leftovers into a startable season.

Why it matters. Target share is the backbone of receiver scoring, and Higgins finished top-16 nearly without one, which is simultaneously impressive and structurally fragile. It means his 2025 required near-perfect conversion of scarce opportunities. The upside reading: any injury or shift that moves even 3 percent of Cincinnati's tree his way raises his floor more than it would for a receiver already saturated with targets.

The shape of the role

The downfield dealer: a third of Cincinnati's air yards on a sixth of its targets.

Split

Higgins' 2025 downfield profile (regular season)

Measure	Value
Targets	98
Intended air yards	1,314
Air yards per target	13.4
Share of CIN air yards (his games)	33.6%
Catch rate	60% (59 of 98)

Higgins ran the deep half of Cincinnati's passing game in 2025: 13.4 intended air yards per target and a third of the team's downfield intent on less than a fifth of its throws. The 60 percent catch rate is what that depth costs. He is the field-stretcher and jump-ball option; Chase owns everything short and after the catch.

Why it matters. Air-yards share is among the stickiest receiver roles year over year, so the downfield job is likely his again in 2026. But a deep role converts to fantasy points less directly than target volume: 634 of his intended air yards landed on incompletions, nearly half his downfield intent. Those unconverted air yards are frequently sold as a breakout signal; history treats them as a description of a low-percentage role, not an IOU.

93 touchdowns: no receiver duo in football comes close to Chase and Higgins.

Comparison

Most combined receiving TDs by WR teammates, 2021-2025 (regular season)

Duo	Combined TD
Chase + Higgins (CIN)	93
Evans + Godwin (TB)	64
A.J. Brown + DeVonta Smith (PHI)	58
St. Brown + Williams (DET)	56

Since 2021, Chase and Higgins have combined for 93 regular-season receiving touchdowns, 29 more than any other wide receiver pairing in the league. That margin is not an artifact of one big year; the duo has out-scored the field in essentially every healthy season they have shared.

Why it matters. The 29-touchdown gap over the second-best tandem shows Cincinnati's passing identity is a two-receiver system rather than a star and a satellite. For Higgins specifically it means his scoring is not borrowed from Chase's absence; the two produce simultaneously, because defenses cannot double both. As long as both are on the roster, the red-zone geometry that feeds him persists.

0.55 touchdowns a game for a career, and he did it all as the second option.

Milestone

Career receiving TDs per game, WRs since 1999 (min 60 games, selected)

Player	Games	TD	TD per game
Terrell Owens	170	127	0.75
Ja'Marr Chase	78	54	0.69
Tyreek Hill	145	83	0.57
Antonio Brown	146	83	0.57
Tee Higgins	82	45	0.55
Amon-Ra St. Brown	82	44	0.54

Higgins has scored 45 touchdowns in 82 career games, an 0.55-per-game rate that ranks 11th among all receivers since 1999 with 60-plus games. Everyone near him on the list spent his career as a team's clear No. 1 target. Higgins is the only one who compiled his rate from the second chair.

Why it matters. A career scoring rate this high, sustained across six seasons and three quarterback situations, is past the sample size where touchdown luck explains it. It reflects his red-zone role and contested-catch conversion, both of which are assignments, not accidents. It is also the exact trait a team pays for in free agency, which keeps his long-term outlook attached to a featured role somewhere.

The regression bill

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT: the touchdown bill comes due.

WR seasons scoring on 15%+ of catches, 1999-2024 (min 50 rec): the year after

Measure	Value
Qualifying seasons	72
Avg TD in the qualifying year	12.0
Avg TD the next year	6.6
Matched or beat their TD total	6 of 72

Higgins scored on 18.6 percent of his 2025 catches, 11 touchdowns on just 59 receptions. History is merciless about that profile: 72 receiver seasons have cleared a 15 percent TD-per-catch rate, and the next year they averaged 6.6 touchdowns, nearly half their total, with only 6 of 72 holding their number. The call: Higgins scores fewer than 9 receiving touchdowns in 2026 and finishes outside the top-12 PPR receivers.

Why it matters. This is a call on base rates over talent: his red-zone skill is real, but an 18.6 percent scoring rate has been unsustainable for literally everyone, including Moss and Adams. With an 18.6 percent target share underneath, there is no volume cushion to absorb the regression, and his round-3 fantasy price is paying for the touchdowns as if they recur. Grade it against his 2026 TD total and positional finish.

THE 2026 WATCH: the target tree above him is the whole ballgame.

What to watch

Cincinnati's 2025 target tree (regular season)

Player	Targets	Catches	TD
Ja'Marr Chase	185	125	8
Tee Higgins	98	59	11
Chase Brown	88	69	5
Andrei Iosivas	58	33	2
Mike Gesicki	42	28	2

Chase out-targeted Higgins 185 to 98 in 2025, and history says teams' target trees keep their shape year to year. What to watch: any Chase absence instantly makes Higgins the highest-leverage receiver pickup of that week, and any offseason coordinator talk of feeding Higgins more is fighting the most stable pattern in the sport. The tree, not his talent, sets his ceiling.

Why it matters. Higgins' range of 2026 outcomes is unusually binary for a proven veteran: with the current tree he is a touchdown-dependent WR2 with weekly variance; with even a two-game Chase absence he historically becomes a target monopolist. Tracking Cincinnati's usage in September tells you within a month which season you bought, and the correct week-one read is the tree from a year ago.

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