Kick 'Em Out 2025: Cincinnati Bengals

Another dreary defensive output proved damning, as the Cincinnati Bengals were kept out of the playoffs for the third year in a row.

Turn out the lights, the party’s over.

With a little help from Willie Nelson, former NFL quarterback and narrator Don Meredith would routinely herald closing time before it was cool on the original editions of Monday Night Football. Alas for all but one of football’s 32 finest, it’s over before the desired Vince Lombardi Trophy hoist, as the season, or at least the championship-contending portion of it, has come to an end.

With that in mind, TeamFB7 goes over the season that was for the fallen, looking at what was, what is, and what could be. We stay in Ohio for part ten, which turns the focus to the Cincinnati Bengals …

Joe Burrow #9 of the Cincinnati Bengals stands on the field prior to the first half of an NFL game against the Jacksonville Jaguars at Paycor Stadium on September 14, 2025 in Cincinnati, Ohio. — Photo by Kara Durrette/Getty Images)

Team: Cincinnati Bengals
Record: 6-11
Date of Playoff Death: Dec. 14
Last Playoff Season: 2022

What Went Wrong

At some point, Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins (and his franchise tag-turned-nine-figure contract), new rushing star Chase Brown, and Co. had to leave the field.

It’d be easy to pin another playoff-free season on another Burrow injury, as a 2-0 start was marred by a toe ailment that kept him out through Thanksgiving. But the defense, now under the watch of Al Golden (fresh off a Broyles Award-winning tour as the defensive overseer of Notre Dame’s College Football Playoff run), once again lacked vital panache that might’ve been enough to win an anemic division.

Burrow’s Injury Changed Cincinnati’s Course

After foundering with Jake Browning, the Bengals let Joe Flacco check one more box on his AFC North bingo card by engaging in a trade with the in-state rival Cleveland Browns.

Though Flacco filled in admirably (enough to earn a Pro Bowl afterthought invite that essentially serves as a lifetime achievement award), rock bottom appropriately sandwiched Halloween: with Flacco in tow, Cincinnati scored 70 points in a two-game bridge between October and November but dropped the consecutive contests to the New York Jets and Chicago Bears amid offensive defensive showings.

Even though divisional doldrums elsewhere allowed the Bengals to stick around in the playoff hunt for far longer than should’ve been necessary, those two losses were enough to convince management to essentially punt on the season: veteran linebacker Logan Wilson was traded with the Dallas Cowboys in early November, giving way to 2025 draft picks Demetrius Knight Jr. and Barrett Carter.

BARRETT CARTER INT

📺: #CINvsMIA on CBS/Paramount+ pic.twitter.com/2wvDEAEiPh
— Cincinnati Bengals (@Bengals) December 21, 2025

While the two showed flashes of potential, their inexperience offered offenses another avenue for offenses to attack. Behind them, Jordan Battle enjoyed a third-year breakout and established himself as a physical ballhawk but Geno Stone and Cam Taylor-Britt struggled to recover from last year’s struggles, leading to more big plays on the wrong side of the ball.

A busy deadline headlined by the Flacco and Wilson moves was part of a transactionally awkward year for the Bengals: it began with the retirement of seven-year man Sam Hubbard and they were forced to release another life-long tiger in Germaine Pratt when they were unable to find a trade partner.

Offseason Didn’t Bring Many Answers On Defense

Free agency didn’t yield much on the defensive front but the Bengals drafted Texas A&M edge rusher Shemar Stewart 17th overall.

That only led to a game of financial chicken where Stewart was the last first-round pick to be signed, all while their edge headliner Trey Hendrickson dealt with a cold war of his own (Stone also endured a contract restructuring).

Both Hendrickson and Stewart also dealt with injuries and Stewart picked up one sack in eight appearances for a pressure-hungry group (Myles Murphy and Joseph Ossai shared the team lead with a combined 10.5 sacks and the team as a whole was dead-last in blitz rate).

All that and more puts the Bengals in an awkward spot: it was bad enough that consecutive nine-win seasons followed up a year where they were perhaps one controversial call away from back-to-back Super Bowl appearances, but they’re now dealing with their first losing season since Burrow’s rookie year in 2020.

Management, however, appears content to keep things rolling, inviting both head coach Zac Taylor and de facto general manager Duke Tobin back for another tour.

Silver Linings

— Making the defensive shortcomings all the more egregious and heartbreaking was the fact that the Bengals may have found some strong solutions to their blocking problems. While there were some issues on the blind side (former Pro Bowl staple Orlando Brown Jr. struggled in his return from last year’s injury), the Bengals enjoyed a leap with the late signing of guard Dalton Risner, who paired well with center Ted Karras.

Provided he’s brought back in the free agency frenzy, Risner is a solid foundation for fifth-round rookie Jalen Rivers while his fellow freshman Dylan Fairchild did well in extended opportunities, breaking away from veteran add Lucas Patrick. Combine that with another third-year breakout in Amarius Mims and Burrow should be well-protected on the road ahead.

Ja’Marr Chase in the last two seasons:

252 receptions
3,120 yards
25 TD
94.5 yards/game

Generational talent. pic.twitter.com/3TOB2T2Bee
— SleeperBengals (@SleeperBengals) January 6, 2026

— For all of Cincinnati’s defensive woes, there is at least a solid young foundation to build upon (in addition to Chase’s continued historic outputs, which place him second in receiving yards through a five-season career): Battle and Murphy both enjoyed career-best seasons before inching into their late 20s while DJ Turner proved an intriguing option with Stone struggling and reckless driving legal issues following Taylor-Britt all season.

While several others struggled in their respective returns from injury, Turner bolstered his coverage and enduring a broken clavicle during his own first-year campaign. With these young talents on board for Burrow’s prime, there’s hope that they can start to make things right and leap back onto the playoff bracket with more experience under their respective belts.

Looking Ahead

Notable Free Agents: TE Noah Fant, QB Joe Flacco, LB Trey Hendrickson, DE Joseph Ossai, G Dalton Risner, S Geno Stone, CB Cam Taylor-Britt

Potential Cap Cuts: OT Orlando Brown Jr. ($14.2 million), DT Tederrell Slaton ($6.4 million), TE Mike Gesicki ($5.4 million*), C Ted Karras ($4 million), WR Andrei Iosivas ($3.6 million), OT Cody Ford ($2.9 million), FB/TE Drew Sample ($2.85 million), LB Oren Burks ($2.3 million*)

(*—post June 1)

Though they’ve given out some pricey deals to keep (necessary) offensive continuity, the Bengals are still sitting relatively pretty in their financials: they’re blessed with over $54 million in cap space to rank in the top 10 and also hold the 10th pick in the draft. In other words, there’s a prime opportunity to fix the defense that has spoiled the stripes’ attempt at returning to the Super Bowl.

Can Cincinnati Make A Splash This Offseason?

The spotlight around such a situation, however, only intensifies on a regime that has killed off its room for error. Fortunately for Taylor and Tobin, there’s room to make a splashy swing (Chase and Higgins were recently pining for a Maxx Crosby trade on Kay Adams’ program), but how will they do it? Will they use their first-rounder as a bargaining chip?

Can the Hendrickson drama end once and for all? Will a familiar face have to be sacrificed? It already feels like homegrown projects Ossai and Taylor-Britt, for example, have played their final games in black and orange.

The Bengals also have a few extensions to keep an eye on: the aforementioned defensive foundation (i.e. Turner, Dax Hill) will be coming to the negotiating table soon enough), but no future negotiations loom larger than that of Brown, who became a dual-threat menace upon his full-time promotion to the top running back spot upon the departures of Joe Mixon and Zack Moss.

Avoiding the drama that previously permeated the addendums of Chase and Higgins would probably normally be enough for the Bengals to call this offseason a win, but the Bengals dug themselves into such a dire defensive hole that it serves as a priority sidequest at best. Keeping the blocking familiarity and consistency by negotiating with Risner and finding a suitable backup for Burrow, whether that’s continuing the Flacco retirement tour or looking elsewhere.

Is There Hope?

As long as the Bengals have their offensive hydra, the league continues to cater to their side of the ball, and the rest of the AFC North keeps spinning its respective wheels, there will probably be a spot for the Bengals to contend.

It’s a polar opposite of what their divisional rivals in Cleveland are dealing with, as the Browns have wasted historic efforts from Myles Garrett with an anemic offense. Fortunately for Cincinnati, the Bengals have not fallen to those damned depths.

But things are getting fairly desperate at this point: Cincinnati is often a mainstay in the genre of “playoffs don’t hit the same” genre of social media post but it has somehow missed the postseason more often than not since the statistically-historic Burrow and Chase collaboration transferred to the pros. It’s set to be a vital offseason for Taylor and Tobin, particularly in what they can do on the defensive front.

The Bengals are built to succeed in the modern NFL. What they do in this offseason will fully determine whether they can post anything more in their postseason ledgers that back up that reputation.