{"id":783500,"date":"2026-03-01T02:28:40","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T02:28:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/783500\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T02:28:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T02:28:40","slug":"bengals-free-agent-talks-with-dalton-risner-not-worth-panic-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/783500\/","title":{"rendered":"Bengals free-agent talks with Dalton Risner not worth panic&#8230;yet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Feb. 28, 2026, 2:01 p.m. ET<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">The <a href=\"\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Cincinnati Bengals<\/a> appear to have an obvious layup they can\u2019t miss in free agency this offseason.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">But <a href=\"http:\/\/bengalswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/bengals\/2026\/02\/25\/duke-tobin-why-bengals-havent-signed-free-agent-dalton-risner\/88860055007\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Duke Tobin\u2019s comments about Dalton Risner<\/a> at the NFL combine turned some heads and earned some negative reactions in the process.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">The good news? For now, at least, there\u2019s no reason to panic about the situation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Appearing on \u201cThe Growler,\u201d The Athletic\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=lPi4G6_5gkY\" data-t-l=\":b|z|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Paul Dehner Jr.<\/a> said that he thinks the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/cincinnati-bengals\/327\" data-autotag=\"6d3e484d-5133-4c06-a871-967f8646390b\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Bengals<\/a> and Risner are simply going through a normal negotiating process.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">\u201cIt\u2019s going to go up to the wire,\u201d Dehner said. \u201cIf it crosses into the open of free agency, maybe then you start to get a little more nervous in terms of getting Risner back. But I do think it seems to be in a decent place.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Need a news break? <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":body nav (play)|e|auto spike click:4|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_sp_a\" href=\"https:\/\/play.usatoday.com\/?itm_source=SPIKE&amp;itm_campaign=PLAYSPIKE&amp;itm_medium=ONSITE\">Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Risner is an obvious must-have re-signing for the Bengals. He joined up late in the process before last season and, when healthy, stabilized the best line of the Joe Burrow era to date.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">But as Dehner and standard free-agent negotiations tell onlookers, it takes two.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">For all outsiders know, the Bengals are offering a very good deal. Risner might not be in a rush to sign. He\u2019s 31 and looking at his likely last chance at a multi-year deal. Testing the open market, just in case, might be on the table pretty much no matter what the Bengals do.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Still, the knee-jerk reaction for fans is to wonder why this sort of thing needs to run up to a deadline like this. And given the performance of the front office in Cincinnati in the past, it\u2019s a pretty reasonable one.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">For better or worse, though, all Bengals fans can do is wait and see how it plays out.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb. 28, 2026, 2:01 p.m. ET The Cincinnati Bengals appear to have an obvious layup they can\u2019t miss&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":783501,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2053],"tags":[95878,228,227,256,2296,7,6,13078,95905,95882,95913,96120,96121,95896,95888,95895,95899,95883,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-783500","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cincinnati-bengals","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-bengals","10":"tag-cincinnati","11":"tag-cincinnati-bengals","12":"tag-cincinnatibengals","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-sstssportsnflbengals","16":"tag-sstsnbengals","17":"tag-tagamerican-football","18":"tag-tagcincinnati-bengals","19":"tag-tagdalton-risner","20":"tag-tagjoe-burrow","21":"tag-tagnational-sports","22":"tag-tagnfl","23":"tag-tagnfl-hub","24":"tag-tagoverall-neutral","25":"tag-tagsports-news","26":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116151565085423957","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783500","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=783500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}