CINCINNATI – Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins smiled broadly at his locker before the team left for Los Angeles.

After being out for three weeks with a quadriceps injury, Higgins is expected to play Sunday against the Chargers, coach Zac Taylor said after Friday’s practice.

And no one is looking forward to it more than Higgins.

“I’m really excited to get back out there with the guys,” Higgins told ESPN in his first interview since suffering the injury. “I’m just sitting there watching, I hate it, you know what I mean? Not being able to contribute to getting a win, that sucks. So I’m really excited to go out there and fight .”

Higgins was a limited participant in practice this week but has no injury indication for Sunday’s game. During the portion of Friday’s practice that was open to the media, Higgins was in uniform and wearing a helmet but did agility and conditioning drills.

“Everything you saw in practice when he was rehabbing, doing individual things, were all things we coordinated all week to make sure he was in a great place,” Taylor said. “And right now we’re in a great place.”

Also, Bengals defensive end Trey Hendrickson is expected to play Sunday despite missing practice on Friday. Hendrickson, who leads the NFL with 11 sacks this season, will travel separately to Los Angeles on Saturday for personal reasons.

Higgins suffered his injury during practice on October 25, two days before the Bengals’ loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. The injury continued over the next few weeks, he said.

“I still felt it,” Higgins said. “But it felt great this week and I’m ready to go.”

The fifth-year wide receiver has battled soft tissue injuries throughout his career. This season, he suffered a hamstring injury days before Week 1 and missed the first two games. He also missed four games in 2023 due to a hamstring injury.

Higgins indicated that he has consulted to prevent such injuries from occurring in the future.

“I thought I was going about it the right way, and then these things keep happening,” Higgins told ESPN. “So I had to start calling people and see what I needed to do better or more. I feel like I’m on the right track now.”

Before suffering the quadriceps injury, Higgins was praised by coaches and teammates for performing at the highest level of his career. Higgins, who plays on the franchise tag, averaged 80.7 yards per game in the three games prior to the injury and played a key role in back-to-back wins over the New York Giants and Cleveland Browns.

Taylor said that despite the extended absence, the team is confident Higgins can handle a significant workload in a game that Cincinnati (4-6) knows it must win to boost its playoff prospects.

Higgins said the hardest part about not playing was the losses Cincinnati suffered in his absence. The Bengals dropped two of the three games he missed.

Before the team left for Los Angeles on Friday afternoon, Higgins told ESPN he hopes the best is yet to come for him this year.

“Hopefully all the injuries are behind me, I’m healthy for the rest of the season and we can start trying to make the run that we think we can make,” Higgins said.

In other injury news, Bengals offensive tackle Orlando Brown Jr. is questionable due to a lower leg injury. Linebacker Logan Wilson (quadriceps) and defensive tackle BJ Hill (knee, questionable) are expected to play against the Chargers.