CINCINNATI \u2014 Instead of conducting a joint practice against another NFL team, Cincinnati Bengals coach Zac Taylor is prioritizing action in the preseason games while also creating some more intersquad competition.<\/p>\n
In between the Bengals\u2019 preseason opener and the Aug. 18 Monday night game against the Washington Commanders, where the starters are expected to play again, Taylor said the Bengals will have some scrimmage-style competition between the offense and defense during six practices this week.<\/p>\n
The Bengals are one of three teams that are not having a joint practice this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m thankful this year we\u2019re not doing that (joint practice),\u201d Taylor said. \u201cIt\u2019s really good for us to continue to put some install stuff in and tweak some stuff, as opposed to locking in on X opponent that you know that we\u2019re gonna spend three days preparing for and practicing for and reviewing. <\/p>\n
“We just get to spend that on ourselves. And I think that\u2019s really needed right now for this group. That\u2019s the way that this camp hit us this year with no practices against anybody else, just focusing on herself. I\u2019m excited about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the preseason opener, a 34-27 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles last Thursday, starting free safety Geno Stone left the game on the first drive with what Taylor described as a soft tissue injury. <\/p>\n
Taylor said Stone is week to week. The Bengals don\u2019t have a set backup at Stone\u2019s position, and Taylor said that Tycen Anderson and Daijahn Anthony will be in the mix.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Darius Cooper (41) scores a touchdown in front of Cincinnati Bengals safety Tycen Anderson (26) during the first half of an NFL preseason football game Thursday, Aug. 7, 2025, in Philadelphia. Credit: AP\/Matt Slocum<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a group that we\u2019re looking to make sure we\u2019re deep enough,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cThey\u2019re going to continue to get a lot of opportunities, certainly with Geno being out. It\u2019s a good chance to really see where they\u2019re at in their development. They\u2019ve got to contribute on special teams. They\u2019ve got to prove that they can walk in there and help us on defense as well. Those are guys that these next six practices will be really good for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taylor said that it will be another important week for the Bengals\u2019 offensive line competitions. Right guard has been between Lucas Patrick and Cody Ford. The Bengals have been mixing in different second-unit offensive linemen all summer.<\/p>\n
\u201c(It\u2019s) very open,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cI think nothing is set in stone right now. There\u2019s still a lot of opportunity. There are eight true practices and two games, so we\u2019re going to utilize every one of them to gain all the information we can out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CINCINNATI \u2014 Instead of conducting a joint practice against another NFL team, Cincinnati Bengals coach Zac Taylor is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2053],"tags":[228,227,256,2296,7,6,111,2309],"class_list":{"0":"post-275062","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cincinnati-bengals","8":"tag-bengals","9":"tag-cincinnati","10":"tag-cincinnati-bengals","11":"tag-cincinnatibengals","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-washington-commanders","15":"tag-wires-bot"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115000529866863398","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}