Locked On Bengals - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Bengals - GUT CHECK: Bengals Face Bears in Key Joint Practice—Will Joe Burrow and Offense ANSWER Preseason Doubts?

Episode Date: August 19, 2026

The Bengals have a chance to quiet concerns about the offense and confirm high hopes for their defense in a high-stakes joint practice with the Chicago Bears. Can Joe Burrow, Ja'Marr Chase, and Tee Higgins light up another team's defense to shut down the doubters? Jake Liscow and Joe Goodberry preview the joint practice, including what they're hoping to see from Dexter Lawrence and the defense, whether any starting jobs are really up for grabs, and the few roster battles that hang in the balance in preseason's pivotal Week 2 action. Photo Credit: Albert Cesare Join the Locked On Bengals Insider Community! Where you'll get updates directly to your phone and be able to text the hosts, check it out at: https://joinsubtext.com/lockedonbengals Everydayer ClubIf you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans. Click here to learn more and join your team’s community: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everydayerclub Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! FanDuel Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Join all the action at https://FANDUEL.COM to play Daily Dingers and make your free pick on who’s hitting a homer this MLB season.   KALSHI For a limited time,Download the Kalshi app and use code [LOCKEDON] to get $10 when you trade $10. Square Get up to $200 off Square hardware when you sign up at https://square.com/go/lockedonnfl! #squarepod Gametime Today's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Bengals get a joint practice against the Chicago Bears, which means we finally get to see these units against another team. And really, it's a gut check for the offense. Can they finally get back on track in a big way against another defense that doesn't know them so well? You are locked on Bengals, your daily Cincinnati Bengals podcast. Part of the Locked on podcast network, your team every day. What up, Bengals fans, and welcome to another episode of the Locked on Bengals podcast. He's Joe Goodberry. I'm Jake. Let's go today. We are previewing a joint practice. And this is kind of like a game preview. We're not sure yet whether starters will play for the Bears or the Bengals in preseason game number two. And Ben Johnson had some remarks about what he's thinking about in terms of playing his starters, depending a little bit on what happens in this practice. But today we're focused on that practice. Two and a half hours planned. And in many ways, this could replace the preseason game where. They're getting structured time on task against another team on both sides of the ball. That could shake out some of these competitions that are being discussed.

We're going to talk about those as well. But the spotlight for us is going to start on the offense. The offense has not had a spectacular training camp. And while we talked yesterday about the fact that there aren't long-term concerns about this offense, getting back on track and putting things together. And being the unit, we know it can be, there are some concerns. starting to come up about whether or not they'll be subject to another slow start. And that is something that I think will continue to monitor.

And they can put some of those concerns to rest a little bit or quiet them, at least, with a strong performance against the Bears in joint practice. That's where we'll start in an episode brought to you by Fandul. You can join all the action and play Daily Dangers at fandul.com. You can make your free pick on who's hitting a home run this baseball season. And Joe, let's start with the big question for me, the overarching question for me, which is now you're not going against Xter Lawrence. you're not going against the defense to seeing you every day for the last few weeks.

Can you get this Bears defense, which isn't projected to be excellent by any measure? Can you get them a little bit on offense and show what we're expecting you to be in this joint practice? Yeah, it would be nice to get right and get on track and not to disrespect the Chicago Bears defense at all, but this wasn't a great unit last year. They didn't make a lot of changes on defense. Sure, they brought in Kobe Bryant, but he's injured now, and we might not see him at all this year. They brought in Devin Bush at linebacker, but okay, we would have been happy with that move, but nothing, you know, at the Dexter Lawrence or Boe-Mafé level now that they don't have Kobe Bryant,

but this is a defense last year that really struggled to rush to the passer. Sure, they led the league and takeaways on defense. So like, let's be careful. Let's protect this ball, right? This is an opportunistic defense that can force fumbles and, you know, get in front of your passes and really understand what you're trying to do and how you're trying to attack them. But this should be the get right opportunity for this offense. if this defense truly is good, and there's many Bengals fans listening that are in that boat, right,

that this Bengals defense is good. And that's why we've seen this offense be less than optimal or maybe not their elite status right away. And yes, I agree. We are not concerned long term, but we're in the short term and right now. And we need to see them look good right now. And we want them to start fast in September because their first two games are against two of their most strongest opponents. And we need this offense to be at its peak. right away. Great test the Chicago Bears defense in this joint practice.

Yeah, it sounds like Austin Booker has had a standout camp for the Bears. He's entering his third year, a fifth round pick in 2024. So there's another test for Orlando Brown. We'll see if he gets any matchups on the other side to go up against Amarius Mims, who we've been very pleased with throughout this training camp on the interior, Grady Jarrett and Gervon Dexter, the two starting defensive tackles for the Bears. Both of those guys, solid plus players. If there are continued issues with those guys,

the way that they've been having issues on the interior with Dexter Lawrence, then maybe we start to see that a little bit differently. But this is also only going to be one practice. And so there's, even though it's going to be probably a lot of unscripted work, probably a lot of more realistic competition than we see when it's Bengals offense, Bengals defense,

still got to take it with a grain of salt, that this is a pre-season. in practice. And so can they block up effectively against Monta, Swet, and Austin Booker on the edges? This wasn't a great pass rush last year, like you said. Can they take advantage of matchups in the secondary where they're a little bit banged up in Chicago? This is a kind of game where if this was a regular season game when we were looking at this matchup, we would be talking about, yeah, the Bengals should be able to score 30 points in this one. They did last year with Joe Flacco and much more than, much more than 30 turned out. That's right. And on being a shootout game that

probably shouldn't have been, but the Bears ended up, you know, going 11 wins last year, going into the second round of the NFC playoffs and a real close game as well. They went to the play overtime right against the ramps for the reins took that one out. But yes, good team Chicago, but it's on offense for them. And it sounds like I was reading a report on the Bears offseason so far or their camp so far. It sounds like their offense is clicking at a higher rate than it was when Ben Johnson was really installing it and giving the keys over to Caleb Williams last year.

So I expect that offense to look good. Really good test for our defense and seeing how good the Bengals defense can be in 2026. But I am definitely. If you wanted to ask this question and pose it, am I more interested in the offense going against that bear's defense? I am completely. Because number one, if there's been an issue for this Bengals offense, I think some of it's been Orlando Brown at left tackle so far this summer. You shouldn't really have to deal with that. Like Montess wet, solid player.

But like Orlando should win that or if he's going to be good, if he's going to rebound. If we're not concerned with Orlando Brown, I want them to look good in that game. I want them to or in that practice. I want this to be, we should get some one-on-ones going, right? Hopefully we get footage of all this because I'd really like to see that.

But Joe Tuny versus Dexter Lawrence on the other side, I want to see Dylan Fairchild one-on-one with like a Gervon Dexter, right? I want to see Ted Carras, who's been dealing with Dexter Lawrence every day in practice, go against Gervon Dexter. I like Dexter. So, you know, I keep mentioning him.

But yeah, seeing these on the, offensive side and answering these questions and seeing T and J. Marr maybe get away from DJ Turner who seems to be, you know, maybe putting a lid on Jamar just a little bit so far the summer. I like the corners, but Kyler Gordon's been hurt. I don't even know if he's going to practice. Tyreek Stevenson is at the one boundary side for the Bears, who am I forgetting Jalen Johnson, who may be rebounding and being a top 15 or so corner as he's flashed at times. But still, I feel like the third guy, maybe that's Andreosovash. We'll have a lot more questions need to be answered at wide receiver three.

But if it is, now is your chance to go and win one of these days against whoever's competing. If it's Malik Mohamed, the Texas rookie that they drafted getting out there. Like you have opportunities here to beat this secondary. Dylan Deidman, my man at safety, set a rookie safety camp as to be expected. There's an opportunity here for this offense to get back on track. Yeah, we're looking for the offense to be executing at a high rate. And I do think that the Montes Sweat, Orlando Brown matchup is an interesting one. Like sweat in a game situation, I would expect sweat to beat Orlando a couple of times over the course of a game.

I don't think Orlando is shutting down a quality player like Montau Sweat, a veteran, not necessarily the Miles Garrets of the world who you expect to have a number of wins over the course of a game. But a guy that is going to beat most tackles he faces a few times in a game. He's a good player. So I just wanted to circle back to that one. But a practice where it'll be fun to see the under center part of the playbook, is this something that looks different against an opposing defense that hasn't seen you do it as much? I'm very interested to see the script as well.

You mentioned the one-on-ones that harkens back to the last joint practice that you and I both attended in person, which was against Green Bay Packers a few years ago. I remember watching Lucas Van Ness in one-on-ones in that practice when he was a rookie. And Ben Johnson told Bears media that Zach and he talked. back in the springtime. He praised Zach Taylor's organization. He was getting diagrams about what the field was going to look like and where they're going to be doing what back in May. They've been obviously refining things since then, talked about a two and a half hour practice. And the orchestration of that practice has been done for quite some time. I did think it was

interesting, Joe, that they talked about doing it all the way back in May when this thing started to come together between the Bears and the Bengals. Well, as we've learned since then, that there is still a relationship between Ben Johnson and Zach Taylor and Zach tried to recruit him onto the staff back in the day when he got the job here. And that would have been huge. And apparently there's no offensive positions open. And Zach tried to get him on the defensive side because he knew how smart he was. He was going to be successful in whatever he was tasked with at the NFL level. So they have a relationship.

Sounds like that should help. But man, Jake, I'm still very worried about the physicality. the injury question, these things seem to happen in joint practices because guys go a little bit too hard. These teams are seeing opponents for the first time, getting to be aggressive for the first time, getting the hit for the first time.

And I don't know what it is about these joint practices, but I think largely that it's not your teammates, gets these guys to be uncorked just a little bit more. And with this game or with this practice here, I just don't want to see anybody going a little bit too hard. We'll get to all that and more coming up next. Baseball fans, if you think you know who's hitting a homer today, Fanduil is giving you a free chance to call your shot with Daily Dingers.

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a home run today can be anyone in that thin air are you ready to play your game today join all the action at fanduel.com that's fanduel.com to play daily dingers and make your free pick on who's hitting a homer play ball and swing for the fences on fanduel an official partner of the mowb physicality jake is what i'm expecting from this practice it sounds like the bears run a physical practice they've dealt with injuries and numerous positions, is that there a correlation there to running more physical practice? I don't know. I guess we'll find out.

But what tends to happen in these joint practices, as we're seeing around the league right now, is it really ramps up a little bit of the competition. And I think that's good for the defensive side of the Bengals team, because it seems like they've been the competitive ones. They've been the ones fighting for that respect, fighting for not being the ones getting blamed for every other game, Speaking of that Bears game, I think it was right after that game where Chase Brown says,

we just needed the defense to like make a play finally or, you know, something along those lines. So I think they're tired of hearing that and they've been feisty this camp starting from day one for the Bengals. We're a Bears fan listening right now to get a preview of this joint practice. Bengals start wrestling like day one, Jalen Davis being emblematic of that at Slot Corner. So I expect this to be a competitive day and I want the defense to show up and lay it down. Well, it's over under on fights and who's starting the fight. Oh, who starts the fight? That's actually a really good question.

Jamar Chase. Jamar likes to fight sometimes. I don't know if he'll get into it out there. I guess if they have a frustrating day on offense, perhaps. Jalen Davis, just to make it too far. You know, we haven't heard about a fight. Demetris Knight goes hard. And I, like, I could see someone be like, dude, you're not supposed to be hitting that hard

or tackling or going, you know, that crazy. Kyle Dugger has laid a few guys out. He has, his own guys. PJ Jules won't be out there, most likely, but there's another candidate for a guy who sometimes pushes the envelope in practice. I would like to see zero fights. I don't like fights in joint practices, and you can call me soft if you want.

That's not the point of joint practices to me. That's also not the point of football to me. Like you're not out there to fight. You're out there to execute plays and do what you're supposed to do. and be better than the other team. That's what I want to see. I want to see them like just being better. That's what I'm looking for.

That's what I'd be most excited about. But inevitably, these joint practices, you do tend to see something kick up. I mean, what was it, the Saints and Cowboys? Is that the one where there's just like numerous fights

over the course of the day? And they just like kept going and kept having fights. I think it detracts from the quality of the practice. Like the point of this is to get high quality work in against another team. in an unscriptive way in the preseason, the way that a preseason game doesn't do. You can get more intensity in these joint practices

in a controlled setting that you can get in preseason games because the coaches have agreed on what they're going to be working on. They're going to do situational work. They're going to move the ball work. Are they going to do those one-on-ones that we talked about the Bengals doing with Green Bay a few years ago? And so you have this really high quality potential to get work in in this competitive environment,

and then you start fighting and it detract from that. That's why the fights are really counterproductive to me. But on the same token, like, yeah, you don't want to see injuries pop up here either. And we'll just knock on wood and hope that we see the Bengals continue to get through practice with as few incidents as we can. On the other side, you know, we talked about this. Sorry, you want to get a word in here before. One thing. Yeah.

Because I can hear the listener in my ear right now saying, don't you remember the Rams Bengals joint practice and the picture of Aaron Donald with Cordob Olson? did he have two helmets, I think one in each hand, swinging them and just chaos breaking on that one. Yeah, let's avoid that. I like the next frame when Aaron Donald's on his butt holding the helmet. Somebody's knocked him over, but nobody posted that one. They just they just post Aaron Donald looking menacing because that fits their narrative. Anyway, it was a cool photo, though. It was a cool photo.

He looked like Thanos out there. He also got knocked on his butt, which is hilarious. Ordel Wilson. Yeah. Don't believe everything you see on social media, folks. I also like this quote from a Benjamin Solac, article that he did after he visited the Bears and talked with their staff about what their offense is about. And Ben characterized it in a quote that was cut out of the article by Ian

Hartitz on Twitter. The running game isn't the jab of the Ben Johnson offense wrote Benjamin Solac. It's the haymaker. But the play action is also the haymaker. The haymaker sets up the haymaker. Do you fear death? And that's just a funny way to end the paragraph. But the, the bears offense and the way that ben jonson has talked about this offense this year we talked about what we want to see from the offensive side of the ball on the defense side of the ball if you can bottle up this bear's offense that ben jons is talking about scoring 38 points per game and has all these ideas for the run game and being explosive and you hear the way that he's talking about his offense that would also go a length in confirming what we hope we're seeing about this bengal's defense

right? If Dexter Lawrence goes out there and is a nightmare for the Bears to deal with on their offensive interior where you mentioned it, Joe Tunis out there as one of their interior offensive linemen, awesome. We're going to feel even better about what we've seen from this Bengals defense throughout training camp. What was the press Taylor quote? We brought this up a couple weeks ago when it came up, but that they never talk about efficiency. Yeah, Ben Johnson never talks about efficiency, just explosive. It doesn't care how efficient he is. It's an opposite approach to Zach Taylor. When we saw that quote, impressed Taylor will be in town. of course, the Bears offensive coordinator, Zach's brother,

we're like, I wonder what the conversations are like between Press Taylor and Zach Taylor on the topic of efficiency and explosiveness and how their philosophies contrast with Ben Johnson there being represented by Press Taylor in that quote. Yeah, and I wonder, you know, that could be a whole episode, I think. A whole conversation, maybe an NFL show should do that and just really look into efficiency versus explosives, what leads to more points and what's better for the offense?

because, yeah, I think the bears are consistently looking to land that knockout blow. And that can be in the run game as Benjamin Solic writes or there comes the play action to get the explosive play. It's they will waste plays in order to get to that explosive. And that's what I really liked about Ben Johnson when he was with the Lions as offensive coordinator. But yeah. So if this defense can put a bottle cap on that, is that the lid, put a lit, what's that the word?

I don't know what it is. If they can tighten down on this, let me start over with. We'll edit all this out. Jake, if the Bengals defense can put a lid on that offense and save themselves from getting beaten by these explosives or, and this is how I feel about this Bengals defense all year, make timely plays, make a big play, get a turnover. If you can do these things against the Chicago Bears offense, that's expected to be really good. Some have lower rankings on them, but the way they're talking about it, the way the media that covers the Bears this summer is saying like this offense looks better than last year already. and they have to figure out wide receiver one. Is Luther Burtain going to be that guy?

Is Roma Dundzei going to step into that? They got to figure out left tackle as well. Braxton Jones, Ozzie Chappellow, just got elevated again to be able to practice. So we'll find out if they have an answer there. But otherwise, that could be an exploitable position. Can we see Boyet, Mafi, Miles Murphy, Cassius Howl going against that left tackle question

that they probably would like to answer before they get to week one. They'd like to answer it this week. They'd probably feel real good if they can get through this practice without giving up crippling pressures on the left side. Yeah. And I think the DJ Turner matchup, I mean, you mentioned earlier, if DJ Turner's been putting a lid on Jamar Chase throughout this training camp, and we haven't talked as much about Jamar,

he sounds like he had a really good practice as one of the only offensive skill players that have a really good practice on Tuesday this week, where he caught, what, nine of Joe Burroughs, 15, 14 completed passes that were noted by Charlie Clifford in his observations. If DJ Turner can go out there and do it against another team, another playbook, a difficult defense to defend very different stylistic offense, right, to what the Bengals do, where Ben Johnson's offense is one of the best in the NFL at structurally creating separation for its receivers, whereas the Bengals' offense

doesn't put as much structurally in their offense to generate separation for receivers. That challenges you in your secondary, and you're going to be down, Ryan Cook and Dax Hill almost certainly for this practice. And so it'll be fun to watch DJ Turner with that matchup against Roma Dunzee out there. And they've got some tight ends. I mean, we've talked a lot about the Bengals tight end room because it looks a lot better. It looks a lot deeper, right? We're excited to see how this Zach Taylor offense uses the host of tight ends.

They have. They may keep five this year, which I don't think is crazy. And we're going to get to that. People think five seems weird. It's not, but the bears, I mean, Colston Loveland. who, Cole combat as the one I was just about to forget there. And then they draft Sam Rauch last year, where we talked about a little bit during the draft process as a good blocker.

They are going to be a 12 personnel standard offense, right? That's where they're going to come out and try to exploit. So get ready for that. What's the base defense look like for the Bengals? Because it's the three, four defense. That's their base now. It's got to show up for this joint practice. And not, are they, how much nickel are they going to play with those tight ends?

That'll be something to watch for. Yeah, trading Cole can met like a tight end. or a wide receiver, Colson Loveland, you have to treat like a tight end. But seeing how they deal with him in particular, Colson Loveland could already be the best tight end in the NFL, according to many observers of the position. And so how the Bengals choose to approach that, I wonder how much game planning goes into it,

but you can certainly test some of your ideas about how you want to deal with the good, the elite tight ends in the NFL when you got Colston Loveland over there. We're going to talk about some of the other questions we might get answers to or maybe you already have answers to, like, is there really a competition for wide receiver three? Will we see that shake out over the course of the next few days? And in preseason game number two, what about slot corner?

Any starting jobs actually available for this Bengals team? We'll go there next. What's going on, everybody? My name is Ross Jackson, host of the Lockdown at Saints podcast. And today's Lockdown episode is brought to by our friends at Basque and Lather. I've been using Basque and Lather's all natural, 100% organic hair care products for my beard for a couple of years now. And it's been a lifesaver because I used to have some bad beard care habits.

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and it's all thanks to Basque and Lather. Explore viral bestsellers and products of healthier hair of all types from Basque and Lather. Go to baskinlathercoaddle.com and use the promo code locked on for 20% off. That's 20% off at baskinlather, co.com code locked on. Joe, we've talked a lot about some of these positions where we thought there might be more competition than it really looks like there has been. early on in training camp, it looked like, yeah, kind of giving Jalen Davis a treatment that you would expect Jalen Davis to get if he were penciled in as a starter.

And it still looks like that is roughly the case. I don't think that even though Dante Myers and Kobe Young have exceeded expectations in training camp, those guys have really gotten to the point where they're truly threatening Andre Yosevash's relative strangle hold on the wide receiver three job as a guy the Bengals trust to do the job that he needs to do in an offense that is built not around having three wide receiver. receivers, but around having two elite wide receivers and has compliments like Mike Keseki and Chase Brown. Mitch Tinsley is also part of that conversation where he, I think, very clearly has a role in certain ideas and motions and under center work that the Bengals have in mind for him. So I think the Bengals won through four wide receiver roles are pretty well determined, but

Colby Young continues to impress and Dante Myers continues to impress in these practices. And so with the returner battle, I think largely dictating how that will end up, these questions that we had about potential starting jobs seem to be mostly answered at this point. And I don't know how much competition there really is for who's going to at least open the season as starters for this team. Yeah, I agree. I think, again, if you're a Bears fan listening and trying to get a look at the Bengals, there really were no open jobs. maybe there was some, but they just confirmed it really quickly that Jalen Davis in the slot corner was better than Jaseer Taylor. Because it looks a little bit different there in particular in the spring program than it did

in training camp. It did, right. Like there was a rotation. We even saw Braille and Lux getting day one, not day one, reps with the ones for certain days in the spring. And we haven't seen that at all. I don't think maybe a couple snaps here or there. But even in the first preseason game, Jaseer Taylor, what, played eight snaps and got out of

there, that's treating him like he has a roster lock. And if we say that, I don't think that's crazy. So I was looking at the roster yesterday, starting a little preliminary, 53 man. And if I'm doing 25 on offense, 25 on defense, just going standard with that. I think 23 spots are spoken for on offense. So like not even just starters. I think we're really just looking at who's the last wide receiver?

Who's the last offensive lineman? Maybe it's last tight end. Maybe it's running back number three. like maybe they make a claim, maybe that guy's not even on the roster, right? But that is, that's it. Those are the bottom guys that are probably even inactive on game day. And then on defensive side, a little bit more interesting because it's a numbers game. If you keep an extra defensive tackle, keep it less of a linebacker.

But other than that, I think it's pretty clear cut as well, especially with DJ Ivy taking that step at Boundary Corner. Maybe Josh Newton has something to say for it, still wants to fight for that last spot. Does Braylon Lux still have a shot? I think it's pretty much set in a lot of ways. This last practice, big one, right, two and a half hours against another team. And then this preseason game, let's kind of wrap these together here because we're not going to get a chance to really do a preview for that game. May just be answering those final questions.

I know sometimes we want them to answer the bigger questions like wide receiver three and slot corner and swing tackle, right? Swing tackle, maybe one that goes all the way into that game. Actually, if we see Jalen Rivers playing that. but it may just be those depth players and it may just be those final roster spots between player number 48 and 53 that probably won't get decided in week three of preseason because a lot of that seems like fluff for many teams that that final preseason game it's going to happen over the next few days here against the bears yeah maybe roster spot 53 and that final preseason game maybe 52 and 53 but a lot a lot of this will be figured out joint practice

game and some practices next week because they'll have a few more looks next week. And then they got cut downs and just over a week at this point where their final preseason game just a little bit more than a week away, the cuts very, very shortly after that game. And so do they go 25 offense, 25 defense? They haven't done that in years past. It's been 24, 26, I think, pretty often. Do they keep an extra receiver?

Do they keep an extra tight end? I think those questions do exist on the offensive side of the ball, like we're talking. about do they keep an extra defensive tackle on the defensive side of the ball because Landon Robinson is currently defensive tackle number six and they may not want to expose him to waivers at least you're going to say and pullback hand fullback number two I guess goal line pullback number one shout out Mike Potts for answering that question when we had him on right after the draft about Landon Robinson's fullback experience at Navy and lo and behold a few months later we got him playing pullback on a touchdown run for

some Majet Piran in practice. Great block by Dalton Reisner. Do you see that? Yeah, yeah. It was fun to just see that come back, though, that the little tidbit from our conversation with Mike Pots, and that's why we ask all those questions. Those things come back up. I go back to, again, conversation with Mike Pots after the Bengals draft of Dax Hill.

Can Dax Hill play outside corner? Lo and behold, it took him a few years. And one of our biggest disagreements, Joe, is that. Maybe we just let you ask these questions to Mike Pots after every draft. play outside corner. And here we have Daxhill, gear not to play outside corner. But yeah,

I mean, some of these depth spots are still really interesting to us, even though like probably five weeks from now, we'll mostly forget about these battles until, you know, there's something that forces one of these guys to play. But like, if Jalen Rivers is really getting a look at left tackle,

not because they were non-plus with his game at right guard, where he wasn't very good, but because they were so unimpressed with the backup tackles that they want to give another guy a look there to see if they have an answer? I mean, I guess we'll see. When we talked about this earlier this week, you and I agreed, if those are your options, Cody Ford or Jalen Rivers are your two primary options to be your swing tackle, man, you should probably be looking elsewhere for an answer to that

question. If you're that unimpressed with Cody Ford, then you're like, yeah, we can't, we can't do that. Maybe Jalen Rivers can do it. He wasn't good to guard in that game. He wasn't good to tackle last year. He has experience there at Miami. Hopefully he can show something. Maybe he has taken that leaf.

He talked about how the game is slowed down. He can play faster. You would expect that. But the bad loss he had, one that really sticks in my mind in that preseason game does make me skeptical. And it seems like Andrew Coker, if anyone, has really lost ground at this battle. Javon Foster getting those reps along with Jalen Rivers at tackle from what we've seen. And we'll see if that continues in the joint practice.

But probably talking about keeping nine players, I think. on the offensive line at this point. I don't think there's been anyone that's impress them enough for them to keep a temp, offensive line into that initial cut down. And maybe that is where they make room for one other player on offense, or they could go 24, 26 and keep an extra player on the defensive side of the ball. Darren Simmons might have a say in that, right? Because I'm looking at the linebacker room.

And if you only keep four, let's say it's Barrett Carter, Demetris Knight, Orrin Burke, Swazey, Bozeman. I actually don't know how good Swazey Bowman is special teams. I know he played a bit of it before he got to Cincinnati. I didn't focus on him in the first preseason game, so I probably will over the final two. Orn Bers is a really good special teamer, but we know Joe Giles Harris and Shaka Hayward

are very good special teamers, and they were very, very good last year for the Bengals. If it comes down to keep Jalen Rivers or Cody Ford versus a special team's guy that Darren Simmons absolutely wants, I could see it going that way too. If you're a special team's ace level player and they don't have that in the absence of Tyson Anderson, we're still waiting to see who the next guy's going to be because Darren Simmons has a good tradition of finding special teams aces. Cedric Perman always stands out when I think about the guys they've had historically.

Tyson Anderson was excellent at this in the very recent pass for the Bengals. But yeah, I mean, if there's a guy that Darren Simmons is like, yeah, no, this is like a focal point for multiple special teams units. And that's why I look at like which special teams units. If you're just on kick coverage, you're just on the field goal kick team. Like I don't really care. But if you're playing four different special teams units and you're getting in there for a lot of them, including the first snaps of the game at those positions, that's a real sicko stuff.

You can think those guys might have a better chance at a roster spot. Yeah. And that's what we look at. I mean, preseason is a lot of that. That's why we'll probably spend more time watching special teams tape because you need to know who's out there and how many reps they're taking because it's important. That's why we brought up Cal Dugger was the personal protector right away. So like he's active on game day.

And we expect that, right? But, you know, if I was, as you were mentioning it, I, my eyes went to the safety depth chart. And I was like, oh, yeah, Dougger, right, personal protector. But PJ Jules, very good on special teams last year. He could be that new Tyson Anderson. And a guy that looks like he was clearly in the lead for the fourth safety spot before an injury has kept him out a little bit this week.

hopefully he recovers and he seemed to deal with an injury in the preseason game. If it's not him, I do wonder where they turn, whether it's Rust Yeast or Dejan Anthony. It seemed like Dejan Anthony was a real long shot to make the team. And so maybe they do pivot to Rust Yeast. If there is something that would land PJ Jules on IR, potentially, you're allowed to IR multiple players and do that before the cut down now. So we'll talk about all that after this preseason game. and we'll have a practice wrap up for you here after that joint practice on Thursday. Until then, we're going to wrap up this episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast there.

Thanks for listening. Hootay and have a good one.