The 2025 edition of the Cincinnati Bengals going into the new season isn’t as bad as I feared it might be but there remain some worrying trends.
Gone is WR Trenton Irwin, the clutch receiver who always produced when given an opportunity as the team’s fourth receiver. He was unceremoniously cut, signed with Jacksonville, who then cut him at the end of training camp and didn’t sign him to the practice squad. This is the typical arc of back-up White receivers; once the team they played for a little bit for waives them it’s usually straight downhill and quickly out of the league, unless they’re one of those tenacious ones who come back for more year after year without getting another opportunity. Too bad as Irwin easily could have been a starter in the league.
Backup linebacker Joe Bachie was also cut and is now with the Colts, where he has a starting job, at least temporarily due to injury. (The Colts also recently signed Chad Muma, who never got a fair chance with the Jags, to give Bachie some competition.)
The Bengals still have two superb starters on defense in MLB Logan Wilson and RE Trey Hendrickson. After resigning their starting receivers to huge contracts the team played hardball with Hendrickson and it looked like he might sit out the season or be traded. He ended up signing just a one-year deal.
LE Sam Hubbard decided to retire after seven stalwart seasons. He regularly was one of the top ends in the league in tackles, and combined that with 38.5 sacks. However after an injury plagued 2024, Sam decided retirement was in his best interest.
Despite having three great White starters on defense for several years, the Bengals now have no White defensive players on their roster besides Wilson and Hendrickson. They also have a terrible defense but in a “copycat league” once again something to copy or build on was studiously ignored. That seems to happen over and over when overachievers are involved.
What's also "curious" is that three of the top five pass rushers in the league are White players who were forced to endure racial apprenticeships and/or were drafted much later than they should have been. Maxx Crosby was a third day pick and is a beast who has terrorized the league since entering it. At least he got to play right away; Hendrickson had to sit for three full seasons behind first round bust Marcus Davenport, a clearly inferior talent. Hendrickson finally saw some regular snaps in his fourth season with the Saints, promptly put up 15 sacks and then moved to Cincinnati where he's been the league's premier sackmaster the past two seasons. Andrew Van Ginkel was drafted by Miami in the sixth round in 2019 and never did get to start, seeing duty for five seasons as a backup and spot starter when one of the Dolphins' "real" pass rushers was injured. It was only this past season when Van Ginkel moved to Minnesota that he finally got to start, and the results were spectacular.
Joe Burrow is quite simply one of the very best quarterbacks in the league and reportedly had his best training camp yet. At 28 years old he’s just entering his prime years.
Jake Browning backs up Burrow.
Mike Gesicki returns as the starting tight end, though the team also signed Noah Fant and his eternal yet never realized upside to compete against him. Gesicki is a tremendous athlete with WR speed who has never truly broken out in the NFL. The other three backup TEs are White, giving Cincy five of them on the 53 to start the new season.
Both starting tackles are now black, with Dylan Fairchild starting at LG, veteran Ted Karras at center, and Lucas Patrick at RG.
WR Charlie Jones starts his third NFL season as the Bengals' fifth receiver. He’s more talented than starter Andrei Iosivas, who was a “project” coming out of Princeton, while Jones was one of the best receivers in the country his senior year at Purdue, “NFL ready” as the term is often used for black prospects (wrongly as it turns out in many cases). Jones has admittedly greatly hurt his cause because of frequent injuries. He’s the team’s punt and kickoff returner, but as things currently stand he may never get a chance to start at receiver.
This is how the Bengals roster has looked to begin recent seasons:
2024 – 8 White starters, 20 on the 53
2023 – 8/18
2022 – 9/18
2018 – 8/19 (no write-up in ’19, ’20 and ’21)
2017 – 7/18
2016 – 7/23
It’s been a good run and this season it’s 7 White starters and 17 overall, still one of the better teams in the league but with some ominous trends on defense and starters like Wilson and Hendrickson not getting any younger and one of the team's White receivers purged and the other entrenched as a backup.
QB: Joe Burrow, Jake Browning
LG: Dylan Fairchild, Dalton Risner
C: Ted Karras, Matt Lee
RG: Lucas Patrick
TE: Mike Gesicki, Drew Sample, Tanner Hudson, Cam Grandy
WR: Charlie Jones
RE: Trey Hendrickson
MLB: Logan Wilson
PK: Evan McPherson
P: Ryan Rehkow
LS: William Wagner
Practice Squad: T/G Jaxson Kirkland, C Seth McLaughlin, QB Brett Rypien
IR: G Cordell Volson (perhaps the only White “Cordell” or “Kordell” in the U.S.)
Number of White Starters: 7
Total Number of Whites on the 53: 17
Grade: D
Gone is WR Trenton Irwin, the clutch receiver who always produced when given an opportunity as the team’s fourth receiver. He was unceremoniously cut, signed with Jacksonville, who then cut him at the end of training camp and didn’t sign him to the practice squad. This is the typical arc of back-up White receivers; once the team they played for a little bit for waives them it’s usually straight downhill and quickly out of the league, unless they’re one of those tenacious ones who come back for more year after year without getting another opportunity. Too bad as Irwin easily could have been a starter in the league.
Backup linebacker Joe Bachie was also cut and is now with the Colts, where he has a starting job, at least temporarily due to injury. (The Colts also recently signed Chad Muma, who never got a fair chance with the Jags, to give Bachie some competition.)
The Bengals still have two superb starters on defense in MLB Logan Wilson and RE Trey Hendrickson. After resigning their starting receivers to huge contracts the team played hardball with Hendrickson and it looked like he might sit out the season or be traded. He ended up signing just a one-year deal.
LE Sam Hubbard decided to retire after seven stalwart seasons. He regularly was one of the top ends in the league in tackles, and combined that with 38.5 sacks. However after an injury plagued 2024, Sam decided retirement was in his best interest.
Despite having three great White starters on defense for several years, the Bengals now have no White defensive players on their roster besides Wilson and Hendrickson. They also have a terrible defense but in a “copycat league” once again something to copy or build on was studiously ignored. That seems to happen over and over when overachievers are involved.
What's also "curious" is that three of the top five pass rushers in the league are White players who were forced to endure racial apprenticeships and/or were drafted much later than they should have been. Maxx Crosby was a third day pick and is a beast who has terrorized the league since entering it. At least he got to play right away; Hendrickson had to sit for three full seasons behind first round bust Marcus Davenport, a clearly inferior talent. Hendrickson finally saw some regular snaps in his fourth season with the Saints, promptly put up 15 sacks and then moved to Cincinnati where he's been the league's premier sackmaster the past two seasons. Andrew Van Ginkel was drafted by Miami in the sixth round in 2019 and never did get to start, seeing duty for five seasons as a backup and spot starter when one of the Dolphins' "real" pass rushers was injured. It was only this past season when Van Ginkel moved to Minnesota that he finally got to start, and the results were spectacular.
Joe Burrow is quite simply one of the very best quarterbacks in the league and reportedly had his best training camp yet. At 28 years old he’s just entering his prime years.
Jake Browning backs up Burrow.
Mike Gesicki returns as the starting tight end, though the team also signed Noah Fant and his eternal yet never realized upside to compete against him. Gesicki is a tremendous athlete with WR speed who has never truly broken out in the NFL. The other three backup TEs are White, giving Cincy five of them on the 53 to start the new season.
Both starting tackles are now black, with Dylan Fairchild starting at LG, veteran Ted Karras at center, and Lucas Patrick at RG.
WR Charlie Jones starts his third NFL season as the Bengals' fifth receiver. He’s more talented than starter Andrei Iosivas, who was a “project” coming out of Princeton, while Jones was one of the best receivers in the country his senior year at Purdue, “NFL ready” as the term is often used for black prospects (wrongly as it turns out in many cases). Jones has admittedly greatly hurt his cause because of frequent injuries. He’s the team’s punt and kickoff returner, but as things currently stand he may never get a chance to start at receiver.
This is how the Bengals roster has looked to begin recent seasons:
2024 – 8 White starters, 20 on the 53
2023 – 8/18
2022 – 9/18
2018 – 8/19 (no write-up in ’19, ’20 and ’21)
2017 – 7/18
2016 – 7/23
It’s been a good run and this season it’s 7 White starters and 17 overall, still one of the better teams in the league but with some ominous trends on defense and starters like Wilson and Hendrickson not getting any younger and one of the team's White receivers purged and the other entrenched as a backup.
QB: Joe Burrow, Jake Browning
LG: Dylan Fairchild, Dalton Risner
C: Ted Karras, Matt Lee
RG: Lucas Patrick
TE: Mike Gesicki, Drew Sample, Tanner Hudson, Cam Grandy
WR: Charlie Jones
RE: Trey Hendrickson
MLB: Logan Wilson
PK: Evan McPherson
P: Ryan Rehkow
LS: William Wagner
Practice Squad: T/G Jaxson Kirkland, C Seth McLaughlin, QB Brett Rypien
IR: G Cordell Volson (perhaps the only White “Cordell” or “Kordell” in the U.S.)
Number of White Starters: 7
Total Number of Whites on the 53: 17
Grade: D
