31-17 win over the Washington Commanders<\/a>\u00a0and put an exclamation point on his bid for a roster spot.<\/p>\nCincinnati concludes the preseason against the Indianapolis Colts on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe just works hard,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cHe has become a guy that everybody really respects in the locker room. He just goes out there and just works and we respect that. And again, he created the opportunities for himself.<\/p>\n
“He\u2019s done enough in practice to where we wanted to put him in positions to be at the point of attack when he was in the game there, and he rewarded himself with touchdowns and catches and extending drives and someone that\u2019s reliable for the quarterbacks in August.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tinsley\u2019s path to get to this point hasn\u2019t been straightforward. He started his college career at Hutchinson Community College in Kansas, where he played for two seasons. He then played for two years at Western Kentucky University and finally transferred to Penn State for his final year of college.<\/p>\n
In May 2023, Tinsley signed with the Commanders\u2019 practice squad and spent two years with the organization. He played in two regular-season games and did not catch a pass.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Tinsley returned to Washington to face his former team. He said that he didn\u2019t put too much thought into the idea of having a \u201crevenge game.\u201d His biggest priority is doing what he can to make the Bengals.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a lot of goals I want to accomplish,\u201d said Tinsley, who has six receptions for 88 yards in the preseason. \u201cI\u2019m getting close to where I want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tinsley signed with the Bengals last January and started training camp close to the bottom of the depth chart in a deep wide receiver room. But as he continued to make plays, Tinsley started getting more opportunities with the first- and second-team offenses.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a lot of hard work I put in over the offseason,\u201d Tinsley said. \u201cI\u2019m glad it\u2019s paying off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even before Tinsley\u2019s standout game in Washington, Taylor rewarded him for his big performance. Taylor made Tinsley along with backup linebacker Joe Giles-Harris the game captains for the preseason game. Tinsley and Giles-Harris both entered training camp with uphill climbs to make the roster, and they\u2019ve both made a lot of plays.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of guys that have had really good camps, but those are just two guys that have just quietly done what we\u2019ve asked them to do and continue to work every single day to get better,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cThere could have been a bunch of guys we put out there but just felt appropriate for today. One guy on offense and one guy on defense.\u201d<\/p>\n
During practices this summer, Tinsley has shown that making leaping catches is his biggest strength. While he has caught desperation passes and deep throws down the sideline on the practice field, the highlight of his summer so far took place at the end of the first half against the Commanders when he made a toe-tapping, 21-yard touchdown catch right before halftime.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was just a straight fade,\u201d Tinsley said. \u201cJake (Browning) threw me a good ball, and I went up and made a play. That was really it. Nothing too crazy about it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CINCINNATI \u2014\u00a0After Cincinnati Bengals’ Mitchell Tinsley had a breakout preseason game Monday night, coach Zac Taylor has been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2053],"tags":[1615,1613,2910,228,227,256,2296,7,88,6,996,14382,45204,45203,1614,9,1004],"class_list":{"0":"post-306084","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cincinnati-bengals","8":"tag-app-sports","9":"tag-app-top-stories","10":"tag-associated-press","11":"tag-bengals","12":"tag-cincinnati","13":"tag-cincinnati-bengals","14":"tag-cincinnatibengals","15":"tag-football","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-nfl","18":"tag-ohio","19":"tag-ohio-cincinnati-bengals","20":"tag-ohio-cincinnati-top-stories","21":"tag-ohio-dayton-top-stories","22":"tag-spectrum-news-staff","23":"tag-sports","24":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115067207378914811","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306084","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=306084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}