Zac Taylor speaks about Cincinnati Bengals 2025 NFL draft picks video
Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor speaks at a press conference after Bengals make all their picks for the 2025 NFL Draft.
Ask columnist Jason Williams anything − sports or non-sports – and he’ll pick some of your questions and comments from his inbox and respond on Cincinnati.com. Email: jwilliams@enquirer.com
Message: There was a lot of hype going into the offseason. It’s huge the Bengals got contract extensions for (Ja’Marr) Chase and (Tee) Higgins. But the Bengals did very little in free agency and their draft has been widely criticized. Looking at this coming season, I can’t help but wonder: Are they going to be any better?
Reply: The Bengals haven’t done nearly enough to confidently say they’re going to be a playoff team. This turned out to be an offseason built on hope rather than going all in to try to join the AFC elite.
What a disappointment for Bengals fans, but no one should be surprised.
The Bengals’ puzzling draft strategy and haul of new players is exactly what you’d expect from an organization that has a skeleton scouting department. Its free agency haul is exactly what you’d expect from an organization that hates spending money on players who don’t play quarterback and wide receiver.
Ownership has put more pressure on the understaffed player evaluation department by tying up so much money in Joe Burrow, Chase and Higgins. The Bengals must build their defense through the draft, and, well, good luck with that.
Cincinnati needed a sure-thing, Day 1 starter on the defensive line with its first-round draft pick – especially in a draft where the Bengals had only six picks and with so many holes to fill on defense. The Bengals needed a guy who can sack the quarterback.
Instead, they took a project in defensive end Shemar Stewart, a guy who rarely sacked the quarterback in college.
The Bengals passed on better defensive line prospects such as Oregon defensive tackle Derrick Harmon and Marshall edge rusher Mike Green. But of course, both Harmon and Green were good enough for AFC North rivals Pittsburgh and Baltimore to draft.
Go look at what the Chiefs did in the draft. They have stars Chris Jones and George Karlaftis on the defensive line, and yet Kansas City still used two of its first three picks on defensive linemen.
Win in the trenches. Win a Lombardi Trophy.
Meanwhile, the Bengals did nothing in free agency or the draft to improve at safety, where Cincinnati has been woeful ever since it let Jessie Bates leave town in 2023. The Bengals wasted a sixth-round draft pick on a running back when they have three veterans already at a position they don’t value.
Perhaps the one position the Bengals improved this offseason is at linebacker, though they used a second-round pick on South Carolina’s Demetrius Knight Jr., whom they probably could’ve gotten in the third or fourth round. They got two linebackers in the draft and signed veteran Oren Burks, who won a Super Bowl ring in Philadelphia.
Ultimately, the Bengals seem to be going into the 2025 season banking on these two things happening:
∎ Outscoring opponents with Burrow, Chase and Higgins. How’d that work out last season?
∎ New defensive coordinator Al Golden magically fixing the defense. Fantastic coach, but he’ll only be able to do so much with a defense that still has massive holes and is mostly void of talent besides Trey Hendrickson.