Projected Cap Space: $43.3 million

Draft Picks: 7

1st (No. 10)
2nd (No. 41)
3rd (No. 72)
4th (No. 110)
6th (No. 187)
6th (No. 197, DET)
7th (No. 226)

Notable Free Agents: 

The Bengals haven’t come out and said they’re moving on from Hendrickson, but that would be a new level of stubborn even for Cincinnati. There’s just too much history between the two sides. The Bengals have already let a fight with Hendrickson impact their chances of contending last season when the best move would have been to trade him for a pick to rebuild the defense. Instead, he was injured and there’s a sense within the team that he didn’t necessarily push his hardest to get back the way he might have if he had long-term contractual security. 

When/if the Bengals do the right thing and let Hendrickson leave this year, a replacement is needed. Former first-round DE Myles Murphy took a big step forward last year and the Bengals are holding out hope that 2025 first-round DE Shemar Stewart has a similar arc in his second season. Stewart is absurdly athletic but between a rare rookie contract standoff (another example of how the Bengals’ front office gets in their own way with on-field results) and a pair of injuries, Stewart didn’t get nearly the amount of opportunities to develop as was ideal. 

That should prompt the Bengals to make an addition at pass rusher to give the youngsters time to develop. For a team that is hoping to contend for a Super Bowl, there’s almost no such thing as too many pass rushers. 

Opponents gashed the Bengals up the middle of the field time and time again last year. Cincinnati finished the season with 2,500 rushing yards allowed, a calamitous figure. A lot of those yards came because the Bengals were weak up the spine of their defense, from defensive tackle to linebacker to safety. 

It hasn’t been for a lack of trying. Cincinnati re-signed B.J. Hill last year and added TeDarrell Slaton, banking on Hill as a pass rush presence and Slaton as a run stuffer. They were the veteran insurance for Kris Jenkins Jr. and McKinnley Jackson, Day 2 picks in 2024 who had the same roles. Whatever the reasons, that group just did not get it done last year. 

The Bengals would want to hold out hope for the young players here, particularly Jenkins, and they seem to be supportive of Hill. Something has to give here, though. It’s unrealistic to expect better results without some sort of major change. 

Among the many miscalculations for the Bengals on defense last year, relying on two rookie linebackers was up there. Cincinnati drafted Demetrius Knight and Barrett Carter in the second and fourth rounds, respectively. Knight was locked in as a starter from the jump essentially, while Carter quickly supplanted veteran and team captain Logan Wilson, who was traded midseason to the Cowboys. 

The two were more athletic than Wilson but their inexperience and lack of command of the defense were glaring weaknesses. Opponents ran circles around them weekly, sometimes literally. Experience should be a great teacher but a contending team like the Bengals has limited capacity to tolerate learning mistakes. At least one veteran should be brought in as insurance for the Bengals in case Knight and Carter continue to struggle. 

Can the Bengals get it together enough to satisfy Joe Burrow? 

The Bengals have drafted two quarterbacks with the No. 1 pick in their franchise history: Carson Palmer in 2003 and Joe Burrow in 2020. Both were ballers. Palmer led the NFL in completion rate and touchdowns in his second season, taking the Bengals to the playoffs in his first full season as the starter. But a gnarly knee injury cut short that run, prompting a major change in the NFL rule book, and he had another major elbow injury a few years later. Frustrated by injuries and what he felt was organizational malpractice that undercut the Bengals’ ability to truly contend, Palmer vowed to never play for the Bengals again and forced a trade. 

Burrow led the NFL in completion rate in his second season, too, and took the Bengals all the way to the Super Bowl. Injuries have also been a theme. He tore his ACL as a rookie, went down with a freak wrist injury in 2023 and battled a major turf toe issue in 2025 that limited him to just eight games. And the man nicknamed “Joe Cool” is starting to show cracks coming off his third straight year out of the playoffs. 

History may not repeat itself exactly, but it often rhymes. And Bengals fans don’t like the familiar stanza they’re starting to hear played back to them. 

That’s why there’s a sense of urgency that will be laced throughout the upcoming Bengals season. Burrow has said he’s not at his breaking point yet but he’s also admitted he’s thought about leaving Cincinnati as times have gotten tough. More than any other team in the league, the Bengals still operate like an old-school family business. They’ve changed in some ways, some of it urged by Burrow, but in other ways they’re still stuck in how they’ve always operated. 

Unless the Bengals get back to having success in the playoffs, something is going to have to give.  

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