Locked On Bengals - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Bengals - TOP-10?! Chase Brown Predicts Bengals Defense Will ASCEND to Elite Status

Episode Date: August 10, 2026

Bengals running back Chase Brown has high expectations for the defense in 2026, boldly claiming it will reach "top 10, top 5" status. Can they really make that big of a jump in just one offseason? Joe Goodberry and Jake Liscow analyze the possibility, considering Dexter Lawrence's impact along with Al Golden having a much better understanding of his personnel (like DJ Turner and Dax Hill starting at CB from the jump), and a solidified set of starters heading into the season. Photo Credit: Sam Greene 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. Indeed Listeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/podcast. 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.

Chase Brown, thanks to Cincinnati Bengals, are going to have a top 10, top five defense in 2026. Are we buying it? We're going to break it down. 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 Liscoe. Today we're going to discuss whether or not we are buying what Chase Brown is. selling here on lockdown Bengals. Chase Brown thinks the Bengals are going to have a top five,

top 10 defense. He said in an NFL network interview after the Bengals practiced on Sunday. We're going to discuss that claim, that outlook for Chase Brown. And we have a preseason depth chart to talk about today as well a little bit. And it's going to be a long conversation, I think, about the defense here as Chase Brown is making a lofty claim. And an episode brought to you by Cal She for a limited time, download the Calci app. You used to lock down. You'll get $10 when you trade $10. And Joe, when you saw Chase Brown say, that's a good defense over there.

We got me. And that's the top 10. I'm going to say a top 10, top five defense, said Chase Brown on NFL network. What were your initial thoughts? That's a pretty big jump from being the 30th best defense in points allowed per game and a defense that started last year on a historically poor pace. I was kind of like that meme. know that woman that tastes that whatever she's drinking and she's kind of know that it's bad.

Oh, maybe it's good. Well, maybe. And that's that was my thought of this defense. And my first reaction was, could they? Is that a thing? Could you go from that bad of a defense last year to get to the top 10, top five? How often does that happen? Or is this is this just more of Chase Brown? And we've heard from Ted Karras of them dealing with a much better defense, maybe potentially the best defense they've seen. I mean, Chase Brown, I think, for the last four years. years he never got to see that 20-22 defense, right? So like, is this just him saying the best one in Cincinnati so far? And to him, that's this must be what a top 10 defense looks like. It's hard to really say. Everyone talks each other up. I think even media and I think even we're guilty of this.

You're looking at the positives. You're looking at what could be at this point of the offseason and going into the season because you should, right? Because this team could be a lot of things and a lot of them are good. But could they be a top 10 defense? I don't know, Jake. I think that's a bigger discussion. That's a pretty big jump. Could this be the stiffest defense that Chase Brown specifically has experienced in training camp because of the presence of Dexter Lawrence in the middle of things? Yeah, I think you could buy that pretty easily. Could they get to top 10? Yeah, like you said, I think that's a much deeper question, a bigger conversation. Could they get to top five? I think that would be relatively unprecedented. I'm sure there are a couple of instances of teams

jumping from 30 to 5 in NFL history. But we were looking before we started recording, Joe, it's just in 2024 to 2025 season. There are a handful of teams that took big jumps. San Francisco and Carolina in 2024 had two of the worst defenses in the NFL. And in 2025, they were 13th and 15th, respectively in points per game allowed, which was in the 20 to 22 points per game allowed range. And the Bengals last year were allowing nearly 30 points per game.

We would certainly take a touchdown plus. less per game if the Bengals got to 22 points per game. But that's probably not a top 10 defense most years. To get to the top 10, you're pushing that 20 point boundary. You're looking at holding teams below 20 points more often than not to get to that top 10 number. That's a bigger stretch. And could they do it? I'm not going to sit here and say they couldn't do it.

but the chances of them being that good, I think that's a difficult hurdle to jump. So much would need to go right. If they say really, really healthy, then maybe there's a pathway there, right? But that is where it would have to start in addition to everything that we're seeing in training camp pulling through into the regular season and showing up in games.

Yeah, a little cold water there from you, Jake, and could it happen, right? And you're not a fault there. You're right. Could it happen? Man, it seems like a slim opportunity for this defense to go from where it was to a top 10 or top five seems absolutely crazy. But I mean, it just hasn't happened much historically. Exactly.

This isn't like a specific Bengals thing. It's just that's a really big leap to make. And you're not wrong. But what we're saying is and why it's even brought up and part of a topic, say you're a Ravens fans watching the lockdown Bengals podcast. Like, look at these fools talking about a top 10 defense for the Bengals. look, we understand that would be a huge jump. But the fact that we're talking about it is because this defense has been pretty dominant and impressive this summer.

And I think the offense is kind of shocked by it a little bit because they haven't seen this type of competition in camp. They haven't seen this defensive line be able to get consistent pressure on their, even when they had bad offensive lines. We weren't talking about this type of disruption. This feels very different. This appears to be very different. And I think the centerpiece being Dexter Lawrence, we've talked about all summer and just watching him, I cut up all of his highlights from camp or camp highlights, whatever.

But watching them, it's impressive how much he's winning. The frequency is that he's winning and how hilariously overpowered he looks versus these offensive linemen. He's splitting a double team between Karras and Reisner, two veterans in the league that have played a long time. And he kind of barrels through both of them. They fall off and land on their butts together. And it's like, that's funny that he can do that, that he can have that type of impact. And he's not the only piece they've added. So when these people are making plays and starting to gel and the intensity ramps up on the defensive side,

and the offense comes away and says, maybe this defense is really good. Maybe it's a top 10 defense. I think we should take note of that. Yeah, I mean, these are players that have seen a lot of NFL action. Chase Brown has seen three years worth of NFL opposition. Ted Carras has seen a whole lot more than that. And Ted Carris certainly is going to experience, I think, more than anyone on the team, the difference in this defense from last year to this year.

I did find one very hopeful example, Joe, as I was looking through the year. So in 2021, when the Bengals went to the Super Bowl, the New York Jets had the worst defense in the NFL by points per game allowed at 29.6, which is pretty close to what the Bengals did in 2025. In 2022, the New York Jets had the fourth best points. per game allowed defense. They went from allowing 29 points for game to 18.6 points per game, which was good. Like I said, for fourth, just 0.1 points behind the Ravens who were in third.

So you could call it a virtual tie for the third best scoring defense in the NFL. So there's a precedent for you. There's one example. I was just looking for the biggest jumps year over year. But to your point, like that would have to be Dexter Lawrence really leading the charge there, right? Brian Cook in the secondary, Dax Hill, DJ Turner, like Jordan Battle continuing to make plays as he's been a bit of a playmaker, I would say, in this training camp. And if he can combine that with a level of consistency, then you have those two units, Dexter Lawrence leading your defensive line that has come in waves to pressure Joe Burrow and cause problems and confuse the Bengals offensive front, which is pretty experienced.

They have the continuity. They've played together by dropping guys into coverage with the three, four looks they're showing. to match the Bengals and base, which I would assume you'll have a lot of chances to do in the NFL this year with the continued push toward putting more tight ends on the field across the league. So you're creating confusion up front. You're getting guys that are winning individual matchups up front.

And if you combine that with the secondary that is more than competent, then you're definitely going in the right direction. And if Al Golden can figure things out, that's probably the biggest X factor of all here. Then you can get going in the right direction. I think I would have to assume that Jets had a coaching change between 2021 and 2020. I'll have to go check exactly. We saw them in 21.

That was the Mike White game, right? Yeah, but I don't remember. I don't remember what happened in 2022. Because then they played them in 2022 as well. I think it's Robert Salon both of those years as the head coach. Maybe you check it while I talk here for a second, Jake. But that was my thought. As you were going through some of these teams, I thought how many kept the same defensive

coordinator. How many would keep an Al Golden, right? Or it kind of been a unique situation here. But I would go back to 2025 and say the way they scrapped the defensive playbook or really adjusted it in a big way, halfway through the year and came out of the by week, more three, four fronts, more attacking downhill style defense shows that all Golden can do that and can recognize his mistakes and shortcomings. So I, you know, at one hand, keeping the same guy, I would assume that makes it harder to do it. On the other hand, they shouldn't have the first half that they had last season. And that was really the big half that sank the rankings. Yeah, I wonder if we look at the splits there. It was Robert Sala in both years. It was Robert Sala's

first year in 2020. And then they got things going in the right direction a little bit. Didn't change defensive coordinators or anything like that. It was Jeff Holbrook. So it was Jeff Holbrook and Robert Sala leading the Jets defense. And then in year two, they took that big jump. And that is what Al Golden is essentially tasked with this year, if he's willing to live up to change. Chase Brown's lofty expectations here. But maybe let's talk about what it looks like to get there, how different it would need to look for the Bengals. And honestly, the schedule could help a little bit here

because so much of defensive results we know are tied into the offenses that you play in a year. We'll keep the conversation going on this top 10 defense idea here on lockdown Bengals coming up next. Matt Derry here from the Lockdown Lions podcast. You know, life insurance. is one of those things you don't really think about until you have a reason to. For me, it really hit home when my father passed away over 20 years ago.

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Download game time today. Jake, there's two parts of this conversation I still want to explore. Number one, how do they get to this top 10 defense, right? If it's a thing that they believe, how could this happen? And we'll go to each position and really what would that look like? And then, if we could at the end of the segment, what that would mean for this 20-26 defense? I think that is the fun part of this conversation. But number one, how could they get there?

was asked, I was on Ari Merov show yesterday. He asked, is this the best defensive line the Bengals of head in the borough era? I didn't expect that question, to be honest, because I really liked that 21 to 22 unit led by DJ Reeder and Trey Hendrickson, right? And then you had in BJ Hill and a Larry Ogden Jobie for 2021. Sam Hubbard was a solid run defender. He actually had a couple of really good years, probably his best two years, and made big plays, obviously, in the 2022 playoffs. And then you rotated in Joseph Osum. for 2022. And I liked that unit.

But then I thought about this one. And I said, yeah, maybe it is better, but it's definitely, I would say 100% deeper than it was in 21 and 22. And that could be the catalyst for this entire defense. Yeah. I'm thinking about the biggest things that they need to get better at to realize the goal. The depth certainly helps. But beyond the depth, they need to be better tackling.

And that's something that we'll not get answers to might get some hits. Like St. Demetrius Knight and Bear Carter get through the preseason without missing a single tackle? How do you feel about that? Does that move the needle for you? Yeah. But doesn't move the needle because it's the preseason. The Detroit Lions, we're not expecting to see many, if any, of their projected starters.

You might see their new starting center, former Bengals Seth McLaughlin because they're having some injury issues down in Detroit. But like, Jared Goff is definitely not playing. I doubt we'll see very many of the Lions skill players. We'll actually see Jemir Gibbs if Jared Goss isn't playing. We're not going to see any of those guys. So they shouldn't miss tackles then? They shouldn't.

Right. They shouldn't. So how much doesn't move the needle for you if they get through the preseason without missing a tackle? How much are they playing? Like say they get, I don't know, 12 or so tackles each without missing. Well, I would say I kind of looked at it, the inverse. What if they go out and miss tackles?

That I'm like, man, that sucks. These liebackers are supposed to be taking this step. That's bad news. If they don't miss tackles, I'm not going to use that against them. I would say this is you're doing. what you're supposed to do, which is all they need from this unit, right? Linebacker, they don't need them to, we talked about this, cut down some of the bad place. And a lot of that is mistackles.

And if they can cut that down and even if it's just preseason, I'd rather see that than just assume or be worried that it's not going to get fixed for 2026, right? We just need this linebacker unit to be better. They don't need to be great. But that's probably where the biggest tackling concern is, right? You think about where it was last. year but less so because we're not worried about Brian Cook tackling right I don't know how much we're going to see Brian Cook in the preseason he seems to be nursing something he didn't practice on Sunday after he was getting some trainer attention on Friday night at the

at the stadium practice but I just want to go see now how the linebackers tackled in the preseason so Jordan battle in the preseason last year had three miss tackles to go with three tackles. How about Gino Stone if you got it in front of you because that was, see, to me, the Gino Stone to Brian Cook thing is a big part of why this defense could be so much better. Gino Stone only played for preseason snaps last year. So we don't know about him. Jordan Bad only had 21 preseason snaps last year. Like I said, every tackle made. The commander's game. You remember that one. Three tackles missed. The linebackers last year, the preseason tackle quite well. I have show, I'm seeing six tackles for Barrett Carter,

zero missed. Two tackles, only two for Demetrius night was zero missed. So maybe 12 tackles in the preseason is a very lofty number. Maybe we should be expecting more in the three to six range for those guys. But last preseason, they didn't miss any tackles. So we got that. So what was it worth? Not much. You're right. Good. Fair point, Jake, that we shouldn't get too excited. A nice reminder is we, tomorrow's episode, we'll start talking deep into preseason, not to get too excited about what we ever see in camp or preseason. It's all about the games. week one could be a much different story. I think the other thing, though, is they really figured out corner late last year. And remember, DJ Turner did not start week one. It was Josh Newton out there.

And Turner ended up playing a bunch week one, but that was after that he was starting in that Jags game the following week, making plays and looking like what we end up seeing out of Turner in 2025. Dax, they kick out what was 10 weeks left in the season, kick him out to the boundary, put Jalen the Davis in the slot, Dax performed great at times as good as DJ Turner. If you look at PFF numbers, he was top five in almost every category and that final stretch of seven or eight games. If you think this corner room is that much better because they're in positions to succeed now or you're at least leaning on your good players in their right positions, that's going to be a huge upgrade for this defense next year.

Probably the single biggest thing outside of personnel changes that you could point to is that this defensive staff should have a much better idea of where to put players to maximize their ability, right? Because you're not trying to figure it out with Dax and DJ. You know those are going to be your starting corners if you have them available to you. And you're going to be pretty confident about what they're going to do. You know what you have to a much greater degree on the defensive line because there are known quantities there. You're not trying to figure out Chris Jenkins and McKinley Jackson's not in the doghouse. You're not trying to figure out if Marce Stewart is going to learn the defense well enough to get out on the field in week one.

know who you have across the defensive line right now. You know what your linebacker's strengths and weaknesses are. You know where your safeties are best used because they're more established players at this point in time. And so just eliminating those questions should go such a long way. Final point real quick, I wanted to circle back to the Jordan Battle tackling thing because it wasn't good in the preseason. And it started the season pretty poor.

But from week seven until week 18, Jordan Battle was actually pretty good as a tackler. He had two bad games. The Chicago game was a problem. He had two missed tackles in that game in week nine. And in week 16 against Miami, he had two missed, two miss tackles, two miss tackles to go with only four tackles made. But outside of that, he only had two missed tackles in that entire period. So he had a couple of games that were pretty bad, but from week seven to week 18,

which is a whole lot of games. I'm not going to try to count him here. I think it's 11. Might be 12. Might be 13. I'm not going to try to count them. I'm just going to spend a lot of time talking about. how I'm not going to try to count him.

Jordan battle is pretty good. So he needs to carry that performance forward. He can't have the start that he had last year. That's really coloring, I think, a lot of the perception. And like you said, some of them were pretty big plays that he was involved in. But if he can take a step to being more consistent as well, like we've talked about, and they know better where all these guys fit into the puzzle, then that should really help as well. And that's the kind of feeling that we've gotten watching training camp, like watching how much better the stunts look.

for the most part, how much better the plets is and those sorts of things. Like there's less tinkering in that regard happening right now because I think they have a much better idea of how that stuff should look. Jordan Battle is probably the poster child for how inconsistent this defense was. And largely it was bad, but they had moments. And I would say battle is maybe the most inconsistent player on this entire defense so far, maybe because we've seen him play a lot for three years,

rather than saying like the linebackers have just been bad. Battles had his moments of highs and lows. Yeah, we've seen high peaks. That's what it is, right? Like there are high peaks for battle. That's what makes the inconsistency noticeable. And if he can find a good floor to just coast at that and still hit the high peaks once in while, he'll turn into a very good player that is going to be in line for big money this

offseason. And that could be the entire defense, to be honest. If they can take off the low lows and still hit those peaks every once in a while, they'll be a solid defense. And lastly, before we get to the next topic, if this defense does get there, this goes well, we don't need much analysis. But if they did, I would bet whatever it is that the Bengals are in the AFC championship game if the defense is tapped in.

Yeah, we didn't get to that. And that's what you said was going to be the thumb part. But if the defense is in fact good and can win games on their own, then we're much less worried about a game like that Texans matchup in week two that looks like it could be an absolute rock fight. Like that's a game that is circled on the calendar for its difficulty because of that Texans defense and the way these teams match up. And if the Bengals defense can win them some games,

then those games get a little bit less scary because then you can lean on your defense to go beat a bad offense that has a good defense on the other side, like the Houston Texans. And we'll probably sprinkle in some of those thoughts as we're taking a look at this preseason depth chart, Joe, to finish up this show coming up next. Support for today's episode of Lockdown Bengals comes from Indeed Sponsored Jobs. And Indeed Sponsored Jobs knows that when workplace, chaos hits and you need the right hire, they're going to help you connect with the candidates

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Traditionally, don't really mean a whole lot, but there are a few things every year that stand out as interesting little tidbits because typically, I don't know how much time the coaches are putting into these. When you see Zach Taylor asked about a death chart, he usually scoffs less. he's like oh is that what's on the death chart i think he's probably rubber stamping these a little bit but that being said there are a couple things that are interesting because there's some ties that you can see like yeah cash is how second on the depth chart because he's your second round pick so of course he's going to be ahead of these undrafted fringe roster guys we're going to put him second on the death chart but then

there's stuff like joe jiles harris being ahead of shock of hayward and you wonder how they reach that conclusion because those guys roughly equal in experience roughly equal in draft pedigree and that one could stand out. But when you look at these kinds of depth charts, Joe, PJ Jules, another great example, being ahead of Rush East and Dejohn Anthony at safety. What are the things that you're looking for in the preseason? Sometimes it's where they label guys.

And because we know the Bengals are playing 3-4 defense, they list it as Nicola's a starting defense. And you should, right? Today's NFL, Nicola is going to be out there most of the time. When we talk about base 34-4-4-3, we're talking about a smaller section of your playbook. but even still do you list those guys as outside linebackers? They'll list them as defensive ends.

Zach Taylor's called Cassius Howell defensive end. So I wanted to see. And they're listed as defensive end here. But that's not the interesting part. It's where they put these guys on the same side. So at right defensive end, they're listing Boye Mafet as a starter with Cassius Howell as his direct backup. Makes sense.

We've talked about this. As Mafay drops into coverage, the other guy that's more capable of doing that on the depth chart is Cassius Howell. So have those guys play the same position. and backing them up is Isaiah Foskey and then Antoine Powell Rylind, who we've talked about is also in that mold. So on the other side is more of your big defensive end. That's the Miles Murphy, Shemar Stewart, and Cedric Johnson.

So to me, that all makes sense. And then I see the same split happen at defensive tackle. At nose tackle, they have it as, although they don't list it as nose tackle. They just have two different defensive tackle positions. We can clearly surmise that this is nose tackle by Dexter Lawrence, T.J. Slayton, McKinley Jackson, and then Jordan Jefferson.

If you don't know, Jefferson, he was also a nose tackle coming out of LSU, while the defensive tackle position is listed as Jonathan Allen, B.J. Hill. So Allen over B.J. Hill, interesting. Chris Jenkins, Landon Robinson, and then Howard Cross. That actually is interesting. Yeah. The Allen ahead of Hill thing. That's actually quite a surprise that I had overlooked the first time I looked at this.

It's a good shot to point that out because B.J. Hill with his experience with the Bengals, you would think. But Allen is making more money. That was a big free agent splash. and I think he's been around the NFL a little bit longer, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah? A couple of years, yeah. Not more than a couple of years.

Yeah, 17 versus 2019, I want to say. Yeah, something like that. No, yeah. Yeah, because BJO was in year three when the Bengals traded for him. Yeah, yeah. The debt stuff is also interesting, like we mentioned here. So seeing Joe Giles Harris ahead of Shaka Hayward, ahead of Eric Gentry, who's buried on the depth chart here,

Swayzy Bozeman ahead of Jack Dingell, who's again very non-debt. I haven't seen Gentry at all, have you? I've seen him, like, going out to practice. I have not seen him on the practice field. And that's where the preseason is so important for these guys, because we're not going to see a whole bunch of the second and third teams on videos that are getting shared on social media. They're not getting a whole lot of reps in 11-on-11 work anyway.

The threes might get one drive and move the ball where the twos are going to get a handful of drives and the ones are going to get a handful of drives each. So those sorts of things you're going to really have to show in the preseason and you have to go out there and show it with limited reps. So preseason is honestly so tough for these guys trying to make teams, trying to make practice squad because they don't get their reps. They really have to just translate the limited opportunity they have in practice onto the field.

And then they have to go do it for suddenly three quarters of a preseason game after they've maybe gotten like one whole drive in training cap. Maybe they get a little bit more work to ramp. up on Tuesday the next time the Bengals practice when they will be playing more on Thursday. But the linebacker stacking is interesting. The way the cornerback depth chart looks doesn't make any sense at all. You got DJ Ivy and Jalen Kimber listed as backup nickels behind Jalen Davis, who's still listed as a starting nickel, but then Braylon Lux and Jazeer Taylor,

who have actually been rotating in and nickel or just listed as DJ Turner's backup. So probably the way this should look is it should say Jalen Davis and Jaseer Taylor, then Braylon Lux. they maybe just put these guys in the wrong lines. I probably say DJ Turner, then DJ Ivy, and then Dax Hill, then, Taccario Davis being your other outside corner spot. Josh Newton behind all of those guys.

Newton, I think very much on the fringe of the roster right now because if they keep six corners and those guys are healthy, they're probably keeping Turner, Hill, Davis, right? Those are probably your starters. They're probably keeping Jaseer Taylor to be your nickel backup and a super special teamer, to do you, J.J. Ivy to be your backup corners. And then Josh Newton could very much be on the outside looking in after a couple of years in Cincinnati.

And the other things I look at that I find interesting when they stack the depth chart like this. Colby Young listed directly behind T. Higgins, right? I'm like, yeah, perfect. That's what he looks like. If you're looking for, hey, when T misses two or three games inevitably in a season, which feels inevitable, I guess. I shouldn't put that on him and put the bad juju on him. But when it happens, Kobe Young looks like in what we've seen so far.

an impressive worky training camp looks like that big body over the middle receiver that can also win those 50-50 balls down the field, right, which is how you would describe T. So we call them a poor man's T and we shouldn't do that. So maybe we're being very disrespectful to the wide receiver two position here. But the other one is Drew Sample listed as tight end one. I've been saying this for years. He plays the most snaps.

He is tight end one. And then Mike Keseki is two. But then number three, if there's a bunch of guys, five guys listed here. The top one is Tanner Hudson. So do not write Tanner Hudson off yet. Do not eliminate him from your 53 man projection. But then next is Eric All. And then a little dagger to us,

Cam Grady over Jack injuries. And of course, Josh Caddice is at the end. He was just active recently. But we have seen Cam Grandy maybe a little bit more than expected and getting mixed in once in a while with the ones. So interesting that he's listed where he is right now. I mean,

Cam Grandy is still the direct backup to Drew Sample. Exactly. Out of all the tight ends on the roster. Eric All is kind of in a league of his own. going to put a backup to Eric Hall. That's probably Jack injuries the way we have seen him use in the little that we've seen of him working him with the two because they've put him at H-Fact. They've had him moving across the formation and kicking out defensive ends on the other side. And we've seen him do a good job of that in a couple of clips. We haven't seen a whole

lot of him. So the preseason is going to be, I think, huge for injuries. But I mean, we've warned, honestly, despite how much we liked him, we warned this is still a seventh-time pick. and that's the uphill battle for a seventh round pick. That's why it's listed behind a guy like Cam Grandy, who's been around this team for a couple of years and has played in regular season games. So he does have that pedigree in that track record. And I think it's a good point to point out that Drew Sample is still a guy that,

I mean, if you're thinking the Bengals are going to move on from Drew Sample, that's happening. Yeah, I don't know what it's going to take. It's not happening anytime soon. No, and I got one other point to throw this entire depth chart in the trash, okay? Jacob Bayer's not listed. Like Jacob Bayer is playing just as much as Connor Lou with the twos. And I'll be honest, I think he's looked good.

He had a one-on-one block with Lannon Robinson absolutely shut him down of the one-on-ones between O-line D-Line. And he had a really nice block in yesterday's practice. And I'm like, I don't know that you can cut him. I'm interested if he plays a little bit of guard and figure out which of these guys have multiple position versatility this preseason. Yeah. But pretty uphill battle for him to make the team too because you're not cutting

carner-loo and if you're keeping a 10th offensive lineman like i better have a bunch of trying to hide them that's what it is they wouldn't want other teams to claim them it could be it wasn't he a waiver claim for them yeah so that is interesting preseason right around the corner is really going to shake this thing up and i think one of the things that we'll do after we see the first preseason game there will obviously be a stock up stock down for a lot of these guys that are going to be on the bubble and maybe we will start to put together some of her own little 53 man predictions because those should start to come into view

after preseason game number one to some degree and after preseason game number two is where you'll really kind of have an idea of guys that are on the roster and aren't on the roster and some of these bubble spots are going to be interesting because if you're for sure keeping Tanner Hudson on the roster, right? You're for sure keeping Eric Hall on the roster.

Are they keeping a fifth tight end? that's a question. And if they keep five tight ends, where are you going short elsewhere? And if they're keeping maybe an extra defensive tackle, say they want to keep Chris Jenkins and Landon Robinson, where are they going light elsewhere? Maybe they want to keep a third nose tackle, McKinley Jackson. Where are they going light elsewhere?

So those are the questions that as we look at the 53 man roster will be very interesting. Like, we haven't really talked about these bubble spots yet. And that will be part of the conversation after preseason game number one. That's coming up later this week. You've got one more practice this week that we'll get to talk to you about as well before we get into a preseason game preview for you this week here on lockdown Bengals. That's going to do it for this episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast. Until next time, thanks for listening.

Who day? And have a good book.