{"id":302486,"date":"2025-08-20T05:30:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T05:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/302486\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T05:30:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T05:30:12","slug":"williams-inbox-trey-hendrickson-to-rescue-maybe-not-for-cincinnati-bengals-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/302486\/","title":{"rendered":"Williams inbox: Trey Hendrickson to rescue? Maybe not for Cincinnati Bengals’ defense"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ask columnist Jason Williams anything \u2212 sports or non-sports \u2013 and he\u2019ll pick some of your questions and comments from his inbox and respond on Cincinnati.com. Email:\u00a0jwilliams@enquirer.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Message: Did the Bengals not learn anything from last season? Outscoring the other team isn’t a strategy for sustaining success and making the playoffs. After the first two preseason games, this defense might be worse than last year. How is that possible?<\/p>\n

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Reply: Lots to unpack here, but let’s begin with this: It’s time to sound the alarms on the Bengals’ defense.<\/p>\n

It hasn’t been able to do the most fundamental thing in the preseason: stop the run.<\/p>\n

The front office should’ve been in panic mode about the defense ever since the Bengals played the Washington Commanders on Monday Night Football<\/a> \u2013 last September. That 38-33 loss showed the world how talent-deprived the Bengals’ defense is, and that even an incredible offense can’t mask it.<\/p>\n

Frankly, the Bengals’ defense has gotten worse ever since the front office let safety Jessie Bates walk away as a free agent following the run to the AFC Championship game in the 2022 season. What you’re seeing now is the fallout of that decision and a failed strategy to build the defense through the draft. The Bengals didn’t even bother to compete for any top defensive free agents this offseason.<\/p>\n

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The front office wanted everyone to believe the defensive ineptitude last season was Lou Anarumo’s fault<\/a>, and that new defensive coordinator Al Golden would be the fixer. Golden is a fantastic coach, certainly nothing against him. But like Anarumo, there’s only so much Golden can do with a lack of talent.<\/p>\n

So no one should be surprised by what’s happened in preseason games against Philadelphia and Washington.<\/p>\n

\"Cincinnati<\/p>\n

Cincinnati Bengals defensive end Trey Hendrickson (91) smiles on the sideline in the fourth quarter of the NFL Preseason Week 2 game between the Washington Commanders and the Cincinnati Bengals at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Md., on Monday, Aug. 18, 2025. The Bengals won the game, 31-17.<\/p>\n

Red alert: The Bengals knew going in that the Eagles<\/a> and Commanders were going to run the ball, and the first-team defense still couldn’t stop it. The Bengals didn’t see Saquon Barkley in Philadelphia last week, but the Eagles still ran all over Cincinnati’s first-team defense on a 75-yard scoring drive in the first quarter.<\/p>\n

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And the Bengals’ starting defense surrendered a whopping 17.7 yards per carry on six runs against the Commanders, as Enquirer beat reporter Kelsey Conway pointed out in her postgame analysis<\/a>. Jayden Daniels and Bill\u00a0Croskey-Merritt were barely touched on long touchdown runs, making the Bengals’ defense look lost and uninspired.<\/p>\n

It all points to the potential of Cincinnati’s defense being worse.<\/p>\n

And for anyone who thinks everything will be just fine once Trey Hendrickson signs a contract extension, the sack master isn’t going to make a significant difference against the run. His weakness is run defense.<\/p>\n

How are the Bengals going to stop Baltimore’s Derrick Henry twice this season? What’s it going to be like against Detroit’s Jahmyr Gibbs and Green Bay’s Josh Jacobs in Weeks 5-6?<\/p>\n

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Heck, forget about facing those elite running backs for now. How are the Bengals going to win a must-win season-opener in Cleveland?<\/a> It’s hardly a news flash that AARP card-carrying quarterback Joe Flacco is going to handoff the ball a lot.<\/p>\n

What an embarrassment it’ll be for the Bengals’ franchise if the Browns run all over Cincinnati’s defense and Zac Taylor’s team starts 0-1 again.<\/a><\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Trey Hendrickson to rescue? Time to sound alarm on Bengals’ defense<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ask columnist Jason Williams anything \u2212 sports or non-sports \u2013 and he\u2019ll pick some of your questions and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2053],"tags":[184,228,86,227,256,2296,85,292,146,7,7410,1674,734,1516,562,4129,6,242,15987,894,1503,111],"class_list":{"0":"post-302486","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cincinnati-bengals","8":"tag-baltimore","9":"tag-bengals","10":"tag-browns","11":"tag-cincinnati","12":"tag-cincinnati-bengals","13":"tag-cincinnatibengals","14":"tag-cleveland","15":"tag-derrick-henry","16":"tag-detroit","17":"tag-football","18":"tag-front-office","19":"tag-jahmyr-gibbs","20":"tag-jayden-daniels","21":"tag-jessie-bates","22":"tag-joe-flacco","23":"tag-josh-jacobs","24":"tag-nfl","25":"tag-philadelphia","26":"tag-preseason-games","27":"tag-saquon-barkley","28":"tag-trey-hendrickson","29":"tag-washington-commanders"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115059453154233878","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302486","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=302486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}