BEREA, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Rashard Higgins continues to watch last January’s AFC Divisional playoff loss to the Kansas City Chiefs over and over again.
For Higgins, it’s not pain, it’s motivation.
“It was pretty tough, that being our first time going to the playoffs,” Higgins said Tuesday. “We got the taste for it now. Just moving forward, that’s a little motivation. We know where we stand and how far we can go. We competed with the best. It sucked it ended like that, but it’s motivation going into this year.”
Higgins is driven by the opportunity he feels they missed in January, and he's not afraid to shoulder the responsibility for that.
Higgins came within inches of potentially turning the tide against the Chiefs at the end of the first half when he caught a pass from Baker Mayfield before diving for the pylon, extending his arms to reach the ball across the goal line but Higgins got drilled in the side of his helmet by Chiefs safety Daniel Sorenson.
The hit caused Higgins to drop the football, which went out of the side of the end zone for a touchback. Kansas City took the turnover and quickly added to their lead before the half with a field goal to go into the locker room up 19-3.
“We needed a spark,” Higgins, who is driven to not make that mistake again, said. “‘How can I contribute to the team and help give them a spark? What could I do overall in that game to help give us a spark?’ I felt the majority of the battles I had that game, I won them, but I could have did at a higher level. I had a couple mental errors, but moving forward, we got them Week One, so I’m trying to eliminate them.”
With the Browns coming off their most successful season in generations, Higgins isn’t shying away from the lofty expectations fans have for their team this year because he has them too.
“Man, if we’re not going to the Super Bowl then we should not be talking,” Higgins said. “That's the goal. That's the expectations.”
Higgins, selected by the Browns in the fifth round of the 2016 NFL Draft, re-signed again this offseason, another one-year deal to try and get the Browns deeper into January, and perhaps February.
It helps that his chemistry with quarterback Baker Mayfield is undeniable.
In 36 games with Mayfield as the starter, Higgins has 80 catches for 1,226 yards with nine touchdowns and he is averaging 15.3 yards per catch.
“Sometimes I know when I line up and Baker gives me that look, I'm like, ‘OK. The ball's coming to me, so I've got to get open on this play,’” Higgins said. “But, yeah, me and Baker, we've got a good connection with each other. He's my boy. We're just out here playing backyard football at times.”
Watch more of Higgins’ comments in the video above.