While the Cincinnati Bengals were making a key re-signing and NFL free agency's legal tampering window went wild, the contract sagas for Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins received an update. Said update came from NFL Network's Ian Rapoport,

While the public reason for the Bengals’ lack of interest in a deal is that they are still looking to work out a long-term agreement with Higgins, as Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk notes, the optics may be as important to the Bengals as their actual plans for Higgins.

It’s possible that he may be a little confused by the Bengals using the franchise tag on Higgins when they’ve stated their hope of signing him to a long-term deal. A franchise tag can be a temporary placeholder before a long-term deal, but it can also just be a one-year contract.