INDIANAPOLIS — The biggest issue with the Cincinnati Bengals’ roster between 2023 and 2025 wasn’t the fact that they prioritized traits over production.
The problems were how the visions for the players they were acquiring weren’t clear enough, how many times they drafted a guy to play one role before reversing course and having him play another and a few notable cases where players the team was counting on didn’t end up being consistently reliable.
The number of misses in player acquisition over the last three years is the biggest reason why the Bengals haven’t made the playoffs since the 2022 season. The defining question of this offseason is how specifically the Bengals’ front office — working in tandem with a fully-returning coaching staff entering Year 2 of Al Golden’s system — can pinpoint the right players to fill specific needs and bring more stability and experience to the locker room.
“I feel really good about our process, what we’re looking for, why we’re looking for it and what we’re trying to uncover,” Duke Tobin said at the combine on Tuesday. “There are a lot of things you can’t control in football and life in general. Injuries, motivation changes, opportunities. Those things have to come together for players to maximize themselves. When one of those elements isn’t there, sometimes it’s hard for that player to overcome that.”
The Bengals’ front office is still digging out of some of the mistakes that it made in recent offseasons.
In free agency, the Bengals thought that Nick Scott could play free safety, that Geno Stone could tackle, that Sheldon Rankins could be a DT1 and that 2024 Vonn Bell still had juice left in the tank.
In the draft, the Bengals drafted Dax Hill to be a safety, Zach Carter to rush the passer, Myles Murphy to showcase speed around the edge, Kris Jenkins Jr. to stop the run, McKinnley Jackson to be the team’s primary nose tackle and Shemar Stewart to slot in as a super-versatile defensive lineman. Hill, Carter (one of the Bengals’ worst picks of the last few years), Murphy, Jenkins and Jackson weren’t used in those roles early in their careers. Hill and Murphy found success in 2025, once they started playing the roles they should have been in all along.
The process wasn’t working, and Lou Anarumo took the fall at the end of the 2024 season.
The recent success of Hill, Murphy and DJ Turner shows that leaning into “traits” players can really work. The best example is on the other side of the ball — the Bengals are really happy to have Amarius Mims, one of the traitsiest prospects in recent memory.
Tobin wants to build a football team that’s big, fast and strong.
“You want guys that play football well, but you want guys that can play NFL football well,” Tobin said. “Those traits are what drive a lot of really great players. We do like guys that are big enough, fast enough, strong enough. You have to have those things. You can’t just have desire. With just desire and not any physical traits, you’re going to be doing my job. There’s a marriage between the two.”
In addition to traits and production, there are two buckets that are essential. That’s where the Bengals’ have to be better.
**They need to have a clearer vision for the roles that additions are going to play right away.** This front office and coaching staff can’t afford another scenario like what happened with Dax Hill, who didn’t find his full-time position until his fourth season in the NFL.
To get this done, the front office and the coaching staff has to be in total lockstep. That’s the value in coaching continuity entering 2026.
“Sometimes, when teams have heavy turnover in every area of their team, they’re looking to make changes,” Tobin said. “Maybe the changes they’re making aren’t great changes. Just change. Change for change sake isn’t something I’m all about. If I think the guy we have the best of these seven guys who are available, I’m going to go with that still.”
In 2025, Golden had to use a scheme that fit a defense that was as young as it was. As the defense gained more confidence in the second half of the year, he started leaning into more blitzes and versatility.
Another offseason and another chance to add to the defense gives Golden a better chance to dial up a defense that really looks like his own.
“It evolved over the course of the season,” Zac Taylor said. “He’s in a great place with the confidence level he has, what we have in the locker room and the potential that we can add. It’s just exciting. That’s the best word. We’re excited for this offseason.”
Last season, the Bengals ran into depth chart problems that forced them to put players in unideal places. The biggest example was how many times Demetrius Knight Jr. was asked to set the edge on the defensive line in a five-man front. That’s not Knight’s game. Now entering 2026, the Bengals know the style of linebacker that they need to complement what they’re try to be on defense.
The bet on continuity is the thesis statement of the entire offseason. It has to work.
“We’ve got continuity,” Zac Taylor said. “We’ve got to capitalize on that and continue to build and move forward.”
The next layer in building the Bengals’ defense is arguably the most important one.
During the middle of last season, Taylor memorably pounded the table at the podium and stressed that someone had to step up and lead the defense.
DJ Turner, Myles Murphy, Dax Hill and Jordan Battle became a part of the solution. But this is still a defense that needs more leadership.
“You want a guy who loves football and elevates everyone around them,” Taylor said. “You want force multipliers. If you put them in a spot, the two guys next to them are going to be better players because of his football IQ, communication and talent level.”
**The Bengals have to be better at identifying and bringing in force multipliers.**
The Bengals haven’t done a good enough job at that in recent offseasons. Rankins, the 2024 version of Bell, Geno Stone and TJ Slaton didn’t lift the entire unit around them. In the draft, Cam Taylor-Britt, McKinnley Jackson, Jordan Battle (now one of the Bengals’ best young leaders) and Shemar Stewart had some rocky moments early in their careers. The biggest miss was Jermaine Burton.
The 2026 Bengals need more guys in the mold of 2020 Logan Wilson. Guys who come in and immediately help set a tone. The Bengals have to nail the evaluations of the types of people they’re bringing in this season.
“Sometimes there’s an elite talent level that’s maybe deficient in other areas,” Taylor said. “You have to decide what are we accepting. Those are decisions we have to make.”
On a transactional level, the task at hand for the Bengals this offseason feels pretty simple.
\-Follow the path that the Bengals used in 2021 and 2022 in free agency.
\-Build a “wave” of defensive line depth through free agency and the draft, including one or two potential starters.
\-Add a veteran linebacker who, in the words of coach Mike Hodges, can be a “caddy” to lift up the young guys around him.
\-Build up the versatility the defense by adding potential playmakers in the slot and at safety.
\-On offense, sign a backup quarterback, your right guard (ideally Dalton Risner) and draft a bit more skill position player depth.
The Bengals still feel like they’re close to being back where they were in 2021 and 2022.
“We’ve got a team that in my opinion can win it all,” Tobin said. “That’s my opinion. If nobody else believes it, fine. Do I think we can make additions this offseason that push us over the hump? I do.”
The director of player personnel believes in the process — one that worked perfectly between 2020 and 2022 but hasn’t been successful in recent years.
“Believe me, if I thought we had coverage lapses, I would fix that,” Tobin said. “We don’t have coverage lapses. We don’t have information gaps at all. Maybe we have too much information.”
Every team has misses in the draft and in free agency. That’s the NFL. But this is also a league that’s ever-changing. Taylor is suddenly the only returning coach in the AFC North. Mike Brown looped Tobin in with Taylor back in January in Brown’s end of season statement.
Tobin made it clear that this offseason, the Bengals will have the resources to “attack the offseason.”
The Bengals just have to pick the right guys.
“(We use) every resource imaginable (to evaluate a potential signing or draft pick),” Taylor said. “It’s every connection we have to someone who has been around him. Whatever scouting report on them we had coming out of college. There can be a lot of ways to approach it. We try to use every one of them. We want to make sure we’re getting the right person who wants in and you’re not bringing in a problem. We want to bring in one of us.”
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