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Cincinnati Bengls head coach Zac Taylor won’t keep his job because of Boye Mafe. <\/p>\n
You didn\u2019t need to watch a lot of Cincinnati Bengals<\/a>\u2018 games last year (or the year before or the year before that, etc.) to realize that their defense is terrible. It would have to be in order for a team led by Joe Burrow<\/a> and Ja\u2019Marr Chase<\/a> on offense to do next to nothing during that time. <\/p>\n Since making the AFC Championship game in 2022, they have finished no better than third in the AFC North while sporting an increasingly negative point differential in those years. Oh, and they gave up 492 points last year<\/a>. You read that right.<\/p>\n So, what\u2019s the plan for 2026? Free agency got off to a hot start when they lost by far their best defensive player Trey Hendrickson<\/a> to the Baltimore Ravens<\/a>. Sure, he was pricey and was broken down last year, but this still wasn\u2019t a step in the right direction. <\/p>\n The Bengals did add some pass rush help when they signed edge rusher Boye Mafe<\/a> from the Seattle Seahawks<\/a> for three years, $60 million<\/a>. For a guy with 20 sacks in 34 starts since 2022, it looks like something the Raiders<\/a> would do. Sign a guy off of a Super Bowl winner thinking that automatically makes him great or something. <\/p>\n But, this isn\u2019t just me saying this, some experts from around the league don\u2019t think it\u2019s a great idea either.<\/p>\n NFL execs aren\u2019t excited about Boye Mafe signing with the Cincinnati Bengals<\/p>\n Mike Sando of The Athletic did some poking around and talked to some NFL<\/a> executives about the team\u2019s decision to improve their defense with Mafe. The response was not great. <\/p>\n \u201cMafe is a lesser player than (Malcolm) Koonce, who the Raiders signed (for $11 million per year, compared to the $20 million that Mafe commanded),\u201d one exec said<\/a>. \u201cMafe makes me cringe because he is really a DPR (designated pass rusher) who does not play the run at all.\u201d<\/p>\n Another league executive pointed out that he\u2019s going to be playing with slop in Cincinnati, although he didn\u2019t say it quite like that. <\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s not gonna be playing with the same caliber of players (as in Seattle), but he\u2019s probably gonna be allowed to just rip upfield with Cincinnati, which could help his individual production. He can win quickly, but in Seattle, it was more about rushing four as one. He does have to become a better finisher.\u201d<\/p>\n Other NFL observers don\u2019t think Boye Mafe will be a huge help to the Cincinnati Bengals<\/p>\n Gilberto Manzano of Sports Illustrated makes a good point, that Mafe was on the trading block during the 2025 season. Basically, if anyone was hoping that Mafe\u2019s addition would make them forget about losing Hendrickson, well that\u2019s not happening. <\/p>\n \u201cYes, the Bengals should take all the help they can get on defense,\u201d Manzano wrote<\/a>. \u201cBut it\u2019s a giant red flag that Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald, perhaps the best defensive mind in football, couldn\u2019t get more from Mafe, a 2022 second-round pick. Mafe was shopped at the trade deadline after his snaps declined over the past two seasons, playing only 50% of the defensive snaps in 2025, down 10% from the \u201924 season. Paying $20 million per season for a part-time edge rusher doesn\u2019t seem ideal for the Bengals. It\u2019s on defensive coordinator Al Golden to help reignite Mafe\u2019s career.\u201d<\/p>\n Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike McDonald recently tried to pretend that Mafe would be a big loss. Sure, maybe they will miss him, but not really. <\/p>\n \u201cI think to your point, like, actual pass rush stats are a little bit overrated,\u201d Macdonald said to The Enquirer\u2019s Kelsey Conway. \u201cI think probably the best thing that Boye does is quick wins early, which is something that you need. You have to attack the quarterback fast, and some things that they like. Can he finish a bit better? Yeah, absolutely. But to get the quarterback off their spot, I mean, somebody else is probably making that play too. So again, another guy we were really excited about, and we are going to miss him.\u201d<\/p>\n The bottom line is that Mafe will help for sure. But, it\u2019s hard not to. The Bengals defense was atrocious last year and, while the NFL Draft has yet to take place, it\u2019s tough to see how it will be any better than in recent years. <\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMicah Warren<\/a> Micah Warren has been covering the NFL – and sports in general – for more than 20 years and he began writing for Heavy in 2025. His work has been featured in Yahoo!, MSN.com, Forbes, amNewYork, Off the Record, GCobb.com, Muck Rack, PR Daily, Blast Magazine and other sports and non-sports-related outlets. More about Micah Warren<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMore Heavy on Bengals\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\tLoading more stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Cincinnati Bengls head coach Zac Taylor won’t keep his job because of Boye Mafe. You didn\u2019t need…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":853930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2053],"tags":[228,227,256,2296,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-853929","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"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853929","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=853929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/853930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=853929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=853929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=853929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}