The entire city of Cincinnati collectively gasped for breath when the video of 2025 first-round pick Shemar Stewart being carted off the field after an apparent knee injury on the first day of training camp started to circulate online. They gasped again when they saw the zoomed-in video of the injury.
Luckily, they got to breathe a sigh of relief when the news came out later that Stewart avoided catastrophe, and his injury was a hyperextension. He will miss some time, but only weeks compared to what could have been the whole season.
The new face of the defense, tackle Dexter Lawrence, is happy Stewart is going to be fine, but he also sees the silver lining to a minor injury.
“I’m glad he’s okay,” he said to WDTN’s Joey DeBerardino. “That’s a guy we need to play with us. It’s a big year for him. It’s good to hear it’s nothing terrible. Since he’s out now, other guys get more time to prove who they are and who they want to be, and contribute to this team.”
He went on to praise the Bengals’ coaching staff for communicating with guys who are getting their shot, and urged them to go in “head first.”
Without Stewart, this means guys like Isaiah Foskey and Cedric Johnson will get more opportunities to show they belong on the 53-man roster. Johnson managed to generate 18 pressures on 142 pass-rushing snaps last season, including nine over the final games. Foskey, meanwhile, made some noise in practice this week once Stewart went down.
The Bengals completely reshaped their defense when they traded the No. 10 overall selection to the Giants for Lawrence this offseason. By also adding Boye Mafe, Jonathan Allen, Bryan Cook and Kyle Dugger, as well as the guys they drafted, they hope defensive coordinator Al Golden can pair a defense ranked in the top half of the league with the team’s high-powered offense, as opposed to one of the worst.
Hopefully, guys like rookie Cashius Howell, along with Johnson and Foskey, get some benefits from the extra snaps they’ll take while Myles Murphy works opposite Mafe.