Noah Fant
Noah Fant’s stock peaked on the road at Pittsburgh in November in a game where he caught five passes and was also wide open for two deep touchdown catches on plays where Joe Flacco just missed him. But Mike Gesicki returned from IR. Even though Gesicki and Fant are extremely different players, Gesicki effectively took Fant’s snaps and relegated Fant to a reserve role.
Over the final seven games of the season, Fant played fewer than 30% of the offensive snaps and caught four passes for 32 yards.
Fant proved to be useful depth when Gesicki was out, but Fant didn’t really click in the ways that he was expected to when the offense was at full strength.
The first line on Fant’s scouting report was his ability to get yards after the catch. Joe Burrow initially described that trait as unique, and the Bengals worked on a bunch of screens for Fant in training camp. But, according to Next Next Gen Stats, Fant only recorded nine “YAC over expected” over the course of the season.
The under center play action flip to Fant worked a few times, but never for big gains. He only YAC’ed his was through contact for a first down four times all season, and he also fumbled three times (all returned for touchdowns) on YAC attempts.
He showed that he could create a solid amount of separation down the field on seam and sail routes, but those were mostly only used when Gesicki was out. Fant caught a really nice touchdown down the seam on a deep ball against the Bears, but the Bengals never went back to that play again in the season. Just three of Fant’s 34 catches were of 10-plus air yards, and the screen game with him never really materialized.
Chase Brown only had seven runs all season out of 12 personnel with Fant on the field, so using Fant as a part of blocking-oriented personnel didn’t turn into a huge weapon.
Fant was the Bengals’ most well-rounded tight end, but there wasn’t an area where he really excelled. Also, the lack of ball security leaves a sour taste toward his 2025 season.
I’m really interested to see how Erick All Jr. looks coming back from injuries. He’s a Wild Card with plenty of upside. Mike Gesicki, Drew Sample, Tanner Hudson and Cam Grandy return to the tight end room. The Bengals technically don’t need to add another tight end onto the roster and could open the year with four. If they add a fifth, ideally, it should be a versatile player who can block and run after the catch but really excels in one of those areas. If you can’t find that piece, the Bengals have enough skill guys to take the snaps.
Tycen Anderson
As much as Geno Stone struggled in 2025, the fact that Tycen Anderson didn’t get a shot to play safety until Week 18 showed that the Bengals view Anderson as a special teamer. Also, in training camp, no one really emerged from the No. 3 safety battle between Anderson, Daijahn Anthony and PJ Jules.
In 2024, Anderson received plenty of buzz in a Pro Bowl-caliber season on special teams. He didn’t generate that buzz in 2025, but that was mostly because of how he was used. Anderson was one of the best gunners in football in 2024, consistently making tackles down the field against punt returners or downing punts. He was in a position to be a real playmaker. But then this year, on a special teams core that had several linebackers go down with injuries and was also playing a lot of very inexperienced defensive backs, Anderson moved to become the personal punt protector — a role that Jordan Battle filled for most of 2024 but wasn’t able to in 2025 as he became a full-time starter. Anderson provided some important stability for a punt unit with a first-year long snapper, a second-year punter and new faces all over. Just like a versatile defensive back, Anderson’s special teams versatility helped get a unit on the field that you could be more comfortable with. 2025 was a good year for Bengals special teams. Anderson was a leader of that group, and he has kind of felt like the quarterback of that unit as a player who knows so much about the entire special teams system and can adapt based on what the team needs. He’s also a locker room favorite.
We’ll see this spring how much a core special teamer is worth on the free agent market. I’m sure that the Bengals would love to have Anderson back in the same role that he had last season.
Or, would Anderson want to sign with a new team where he’d get a fresh start to play at safety?
Cam Sample
I couldn’t have more respect for Cam Sample — he has shown up every day for five years, done the dirty work as an edge setter, received effectively no recognition and set an example with his work ethic. He never gets a spotlight, but he’ll play a quarter of the snaps and get you through games with reliable play from a backup.
Cedric Johnson should be ahead of Sample in the pass rush rotation. And obviously, so should Myles Murphy, Shemar Stewart and any defensive end the Bengals sign or draft this spring. But aside from Murphy (and those were just brief flashes), Sample is the only player who has shown a rugged ability on the edge against the run.
Also, people forget that he was a regular part of the rotation in 2021 and 2022.
After missing the entire 2024 season with an injury, Sample did his thing in 2025. He had 17 tackles in 102 snaps against the run. Ten of those tackles were impact stops within three yards of the line of scrimmage. There’s a rep from last year where he stood up Penei Sewell at the point of attack, dipped around him and tackled the Lions’ running back in the backfield. Sample was also one of the best Bengals at chasing down a play from the backside and finishing with a tackle.
He’s not super twitchy, and the decision to drop him back in coverage a few times last year always seemed to backfire. He also has been on the injury report more often than you’d want.
There are also plays where he seals off the edge, forces the running back to cut upfield and then dives backward for a shoestring tackle (this one was against the Dolphins).
He’s a glue guy, the perfect fifth/sixth defensive end. He’ll do the dirty work, soak up snaps against the run and he’s able to kick inside if you need him on pass rush downs. He’s not a dynamic guy, but that versatility is what you need in the defensive line room so you don’t have to count on journeymen like Jay Tufele, Isaiah Foskey or Lawrence Guy.
Marco Wilson
He quietly suffered one of the most personally devastating injuries of the season. After Cam Taylor-Britt’s injury opened up a spot in the lineup, it looked like the initial plan was to use Jalen Davis on early downs and then feature Wilson as a cover corner on third downs. Wilson, who joined the Bengals off waivers late in the 2024 season, was going to get a real shot in 2025 to prove what he could do.
And then on the very first snap of Wilson’s first game in that role (the Patriots game), Wilson suffered a season-ending hamstring injury.
Wilson has fans in Paycor Stadium. In October, he should have been getting snaps over Josh Newton. But because the defensive line was banged up and needed more depth on the active game day roster (the Bengals would carry nine or 10 DL) and since Wilson isn’t a special teamer, he was often inactive.
In October, unprompted, Golden said, “We’ve been we’ve been trying to get Marco in the mix all year. We’ve been trying to get him up. It’s just been hard because of, you know, the injuries at the end, or the lack of depth at certain places.”
Wilson isn’t a versatile corner. But in one-on-one situations in training camp and in a few spot opportunities with the Bengals in 2024, he showed that he can play man defense much better than the average backup corner. There are limitations across the rest of his game, but the NFL needs guys who can cover one-on-one. Wilson has also made 37 starts in the NFL, serving as a full-time starting corner in Arizona between 2021 and 2023. Since those were very bad defenses, he struggled to develop in that environment.
It would have been very interesting to see what Wilson could do down the stretch this season, but the injury took that opportunity away from him.
The 2026 Bengals desperately need a corner like Wilson. DJ Turner and Dax Hill are the starting outside corners. We’ll see what they do in the slot. But the backups are Josh Newton and tight end stopper DJ Ivey, who have both really struggled in one-on-one matchups outside the numbers.
Whether it’s Wilson (still just 26 years old), a draft pick or the next version of Wilson as a low-cost pickup who’s a flier in free agency, the Bengals need a cover man corner on their bench who’d be ready to play in specific third down packages and back up Turner.
A big factor with Wilson on the market this winter will likely be his medicals and how he’s coming back from the injury.
Lucas Patrick
Signing Patrick to be the starting right guard was always a flawed plan for the 2025 season. He had a tough training camp and preseason, and he was also banged up a bit during the summer.
Patrick won the right guard battle in camp, left the game in Week 1 with an injury, was Wally Pipped by Dalton Risner and effectively didn’t play the rest of the season (outside of a few short yardage jumbo personnel packages).
Patrick was likely a better bet to plan well during the first half of the season than Jalen Rivers was, but Zac Taylor decided to roll with the young guys for a while during a season that had a bit of a rebuilding element to it.
Late in the year, Dan Pitcher brought up Patrick as a player who “certainly has had an impact in the room and on the practice field.”
There’s not really a sample size to go off of to evaluate Patrick’s 2025 season. Something I believe pretty strongly, though, is that the Bengals need some veteran center behind Ted Karras on the depth chart. It doesn’t feel like Matt Lee is a guy you can count on to earn a spot on the roster in camp, and the Bengals have too many other needs to use a Day 3 pick on a backup center.
If Patrick is as good of a fit in the room as Pitcher said, then Patrick is worth bringing back as center depth on a veteran minimum deal. Patrick can also compete to be your first guard off the bench, which is an attainable spot for him on the depth chart.
Looking at the offensive line as a whole and the Dalton Risner free agency, use Patrick as an example that you can’t count on and plan for a cheap player in this tier to be your starter for 17 games in 2026. You need to invest more than the Bengals did in 2025, and the ideal plan would be bringing Risner back to start.
Jalen Davis
I wrote about Davis’ incredible story during the regular season. Last week, I covered the evolution in the slot and the changes the Bengals could make.
I won’t go in-depth and in the weeds into all of that again here and will keep this one short.
Davis is an old-school, feisty slot corner who belonged as a starter in 2025. He made a significant impact across the entire defense. But also, rolling with him as your full-time slot corner restricts the versatility of your scheme.
Davis proved that he can make an impact in a bigger role, but the best case scenario for the 2026 Bengals feels like building a more versatile and dynamic secondary. If Davis is willing to return as a fifth-or-sixth corner in the room who could play a role in a few packages and then be ready to step into a starting style role if someone gets injured (like what happened last year), that feels like an exciting plan for the secondary.
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