CINCINNATI (WXIX) - Noah Fant spent his offseason preparing for a brand new offense. He was still the starting tight end for the Seahawks during the summer, and Seattle brought in a new offensive coordinator for 2025.
One year after Fant was a part of a pass-heavy, shotgun spread offense, Fant was preparing himself to be a part of a more versatile, run oriented and play-action centered scheme.
All of Fant’s work wound up being a waste of time. On July 20, the Seahawks made him a cap casualty and cut him. Over the next three weeks, Fant essentially experienced an entire offseason in a very compressed amount of time.
“It’s been quick,” Fant said. “It’s been a grind. It’s making sure my iPad is my best friend and learning the offense and studying. The coaches have done a great job of bringing me along and keeping me within distance of knowing everything they have in. It’s been exciting to get worked into practice. I’ve been having a good time.”
When the Seahawks cut Fant right before the start of training camp, time was money for him. He knew that the sooner he got into a new training camp, the easier the acclimation process would be. But the six-year veteran didn’t want to rush into anything.
Even though he felt a lot of urgency, he still made a point to visit three different teams, including the Bengals.
“I didn’t want to jump in and go in blind to a situation,” Fant said. “I wanted to meet with coaches, see what the facilities are like and try to get a better picture of what I was walking into. I was able to do that and come to the great landing spot of Cincinnati.”
The Bengals have a well-documented history of being a great place for free agent tight ends to sign one-year prove-it deals. Fant, who caught 48 passes last season (21st among all NFL tight ends), hopes to join the lineage of Mike Gesicki and Hayden Hurst.
“They do everything you could ask here,” Fant said. “They throw to the tight ends. We get into 12 personnel sometimes. They ask you to do multiple things. And you have a quarterback like Joe able to deliver the passes. You can’t ask for much more.”
The Bengals signed Fant even though they already had five tight ends on the roster. But essentially, Fant plays a completely different position than Mike Gesicki, Drew Sample, Tanner Hudson, Cam Grandy and Tanner McLachlan.
Gesicki might as well be listed as a receiver at this point because of how little he lines up on the line of scrimmage and how often the Bengals deploy him across the formation. Hudson and McLachlan are also in that mold of tight end.
Sample and Grandy are true Y tight ends who the Bengals want to set the point of attack as blockers.
Fant probably isn’t Erick All Jr., the do-it-all tight end who’s out for the year with a knee injury. But Fant is the closest thing the Bengals have to All this season.
“(Fant) is a big guy,” Dan Pitcher said. “He’s explosive. He’s fast. He’s powerful. He has big powerful strides. He can function as a blocker in 12 personnel in a number of different roles. He’s kind of drinking from a fire hose right now a little bit as you could imagine. We’re on the 600 level course of the Cincinnati Bengals Joe Burrow offense. He’s trying to take it all in, and he’s doing a good job of that.”
After living in 11 personnel for years, the Bengals worked more two tight end sets into their offense last season. All’s versatility unlocked a new gear for the offense.
Even if Fant isn’t All as a blocker, Fant is much better in that area than Gesicki and Hudson. Fant lets the Bengals become more versatile again.
“We did have success in 12,” Pitcher said. “I want that to be a part of who we are moving forward. Part of it will be a mix and match. It’s great when you have those things at your disposal. I see Noah Fant factoring into that. What does he do in that role? I can’t tell you right now. We’re going to put him in position to do the best things his skill set dictates. Twelve personnel will be a world that we’ll live in. How much, it’ll vary. We’ll see.”
The biggest challenge right now for Fant is how new this all is for him in the Bengals’ offense. He still has a lot to learn, and the coaching staff still has a lot to learn about him.
His biggest strength is his ability to fight for yards after catch, and at a minimum he’ll elevate a Bengals’ check down game that was a critical piece of the puzzle in 2022 before fading away.
Before the Bengals finalize the packages that Fant will be a part of this year, he has some more catching up to do. Since Fant was a late arrival to training camp, the coaching staff gave him an acclimation week to get up to speed mentally and physically.
“The biggest thing was learning the plays,” Fant said. “Bringing me along in the playbook. Also, I was a week behind of everybody. They brought me up to speed. I’m really working in now and catching up conditioning wise. It’s hard to mimic that stuff when you’re not on a team. Getting those reps and routes and blocking, it’s been going very good.”
The skill sets of the tight ends on the field for the Bengals on any given play often shape the identity of the entire offense at that given moment. When it’s Gesicki and three receivers, the Bengals are essentially running a form of Joe Burrow’s LSU offense. When it’s Sample and Grandy on the field, they’re trying to establish the power run game.
Fant’s skill set fits somewhere in between those two extremes.
“We obviously have a vision for how we’re going to use his skill set,” Pitcher said. “You guys will have a chance to see that soon enough.”
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