Paul Jones, assistant general manager of the Saskatchewan Roughriders, went to scout players on Sept. 28, 2019, at a college football game at a high school stadium in Florence, Alabama. The University of North Alabama was hosting Presbyterian College at Braly Stadium, home of the Florence High School Falcons.
One of the most successful talent evaluators in CFL history, Jones was an Arkansas native with the Southern accent to match. He'd helped jump-start dozens of professional careers in the CFL over the decades, and he went to Braly Stadium to watch several North Alabama players. But like any skilled scout, Jones was prepared for other players to grab his attention.
That afternoon,
Jones took a few unplanned notes on a Presbyterian wide receiver − a kid named “Meyers” − even though the player was somewhat-undersized, not to mention an underclassman, which made him far less interesting to a pro organization. Still, Dohnte Meyers’ 118 receiving yards and his 47-yard touchdown reception in Presbyterian’s 41-21 intrigued Jones.
“It’s hard not to notice him,” Jones said. “He caught my eye. I was watching another couple guys on the other team, but he jumped out.
“You put those guys in the back of your mind. … You don’t do a lot of research right then because he’s young.”
Meyers was a self-described late bloomer in the football world, but ended up making it to the highest level of the game without benefit of big-time college football. That meant grabbing the attention of people like Jones at opportune moments, but those moments are why Meyers is today a rising talent within the receiver-rich Cincinnati Bengals organization.
Through five games, Meyers has 13 receptions for 141 yards. He's an asset on a team with perhaps the most wide receiver depth in the NFL, but he's also valued for his versatility. As a kick and punt returner, he's amassed more than 470 yards in 23 opportunities. His return yardage on kickoffs ranks No. 4 in the NFL.
Small-college journey from Presbyterian to Delta State
Listed at 5-11, 186 pounds and 26 years old, Meyers was chronically overlooked as a wide receiver dating back to his high school years. At that time in his life, players and friends around him received looks and offers from programs in the mighty Southeastern Conference. One friend received was visited on-campus by an SEC coach who traveled in via helicopter.
Even with all the prominent eyes surveying Meyers' high school setup, the gaze of big-time college coaches and scouts never seemed to land on him for long enough. As a result, Meyers ended up playing college ball in the NCAA’s Division I second-tier, the “FCS,” or Football Championship Subdivision, at Presbyterian College. Later, Meyers transferred down another level to Delta State of the NCAA's Division II.
Some could have inferred from the transfer that Meyers' career was moving in the wrong direction, but that wasn't the case.
After college, Meyers got a professional opportunity via the Canadian Football League, but even CFL talent evaluators like Jones didn’t initially know to go looking for Meyers.
While there was an undeniable lack of interest in Meyers as a player at times in his career, he still managed to drum up major interest. His play almost forced to turn and take notice of him, and he's still providing reasons to look.
Just take his most recent work for example. Maybe Meyers caught your eye with his acrobatic, contested catch during the Bengals' furious, final-drive comeback attempt against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Oct. 4.
Or maybe it was his blistering speed on a tone-setting, 81-yard kickoff return on the first play of the Week 5 must-win game against the Miami Dolphins. Through five weeks, that return was the longest across the entire NFL.
More opportunities have come to Meyers as the Bengals season continued, and he's found ways to impact games seemingly each week. Now, more people than ever before have their eyes fixed on Meyers, and that includes opposing defenses and special teams units.
From a career that was playing out in obscurity, Meyers became the darling story of Bengals 2026 training camp. So successful was his training camp that the unheralded Meyers had secured his place on head coach Zac Taylor’s 53-man roster with time to spare before the final preseason game Aug. 28.
“In the Philly game, we’re trying to get Dohnte out of the game as quickly as possible,” Taylor said, “because he had solidified his standing with us 100% at that point.”
The praise for Meyers has been effusive.
Taylor said his ability to make would-be tacklers miss was second on the entire team to only Ja’Marr Chase. Bengals offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher hailed Meyers for handling sudden, in-game workload increases.
$100 CFL tryout was 'a good investment'
Meyers probably wouldn't have made it to this point without his persuasive play in Jones' presence − twice. And Meyers wasn't on Jones' agenda on either occasion.
After Jones stumbled upon Meyers in 2019, the two men crossed paths unexpectedly again three years later. The circumstances were similar to the North Alabama-Presbyterian game, too. It was Sept. 24, 2022, and Meyers had entered the transfer portal and landed at Delta State.
Once again, Jones found himself at a Meyers game but was there to scout players for the opponent, which was West Florida in this instance. Jones said he didn’t even know Meyers had entered the portal.
Meyers, then a junior, grabbed Jones’ interest again, this time with two receiving touchdowns and 170 receiving yards. Jones pieced together that this was the same Meyers he’d seen in 2019, and now Meyers had Jones' full attention. The beginnings of a recruitment effort would follow.
“I said, ‘well, here’s a guy we definitely want to track,’” Jones said.
The next year, Jones saw Meyers play in-person again as a Delta State player. This time, Jones was there to see Meyers specifically, and Meyers didn’t disappoint, Jones said. That led Jones to begin background work on Meyers, as well as attending his pro day in Jackson, Mississippi.
After a successful pro day, Jones encouraged Meyers to attend a Roughriders tryout in Atlanta. They spoke on the phone in preparation for the tryout. Jones conveyed to Meyers his confidence in him.
Meyers confirmed it cost $100 to participate in the tryout. “A good investment,” he told The Enquirer of paying the fee. The Roughriders staff was glad Meyers paid, too.
“He had a really good workout in Atlanta. We liked him and signed him to a futures (contract) for him to come into training camp,” Jones said. “He was a really hard worker and made some people realize, ‘hey, here’s a guy we may want to take a look at.’ We had a really good receiving corps with some veterans, but he’d done some really good things. He talked to the coaches, and they thought he picked things up real well, and could play all over the field as a receiver. Had some return ability also, so that’s always a value.”
Upon arrival with the Roughriders in 2024, Meyers entered a receivers room full of veterans. Saskatchewan also featured a decorated kick returner. Given all that, Meyers had work to do to carve out a role for himself. His first rookie camp made it clear that even without major-college playing experience, Meyers was ready for professional football.
“He popped on just the eye test,” said Marc Mueller, the Roughriders offensive coordinator. “He could get off the ball fast. High compete level. … With Dohnte, I think it was just getting back to football and understanding the differences of our game (in CFL). I wouldn’t say he was unpolished by any means.”
Dohnte Meyers becomes a Grey Cup champion
Meyers’ first CFL season was bookended by injuries. Toward the end of a successful training camp where Meyers played well in the Roughriders' two preseason games, a broken wrist sidelined him for weeks, although Mueller said he still attended meetings, asked questions and prepared like he was healthy and available.
Meyers ended up playing just four games during the 2024 season, which was cut short when he suffered a season-ending shoulder injury while completing a catch against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, Saskatchewan’s arch-rival.
Meyers showed up prepared for the 2025 CFL season, and it ended up being his coming-out party in pro football. Mueller said Meyers tried playing multiple positions in order to maximize his skills while also covering for injured teammates. He played in 15 games, caught 65 balls for more than a 1,000 receiving yards and scored eight touchdowns. He also had 11 catches that went for 30 yards or more.
Mueller said Meyers excelled at contested catches, which are key in the CFL. With just three downs in the CFL (the NFL has four downs), tight-window and riskier throws are more prominent.
In the return game, Meyers averaged 29 yard per return on kickoffs. His punt returns averaged a formidable 10.4 yards per return.
The 2025 campaign was also a season of team success − the Roughriders won the Grey Cup, the CFL’s Super Bowl.
“When your best guys are your best examples, that’s when you’re gonna have a good team,” Mueller said. “We were lucky that Dohnte was that.”
In the midst of his breakout CFL campaign, the landscape of Meyers’ career was shifting behind the scenes. The Bengals scouted him in 2025, Meyers said. Jones added that he heard from several members of the Bengals organization regarding Meyers.
After everything he’d been through — a lightly-recruited high schooler and a CFL tryout success story — it became clear to Meyers that the NFL was the next step.
“I really put that off from my mind,” Meyers said. “Of course, the NFL was always a goal, but something I was always working on was being present.”
Jones said Meyers' NFL future would likely end up looking a lot like the rest of his story up to that point. Given the opportunity, Meyers had the ingredients necessary to turn heads and jump up another level in the game.
Meyers worked out for several NFL teams and in January signed a reserve/future contract with the Bengals.
Driving from Atlanta to throw with Joe Burrow
Following the Bengals-Jaguars game Oct. 4 when Meyers amassed 243 all-purpose yards (82 receiving yards and 161 kick-return yards), Pitcher lauded the receiver for his work dating back to the offseason.
“Two weeks in a row, Dohnte’s been thrust into roles that he didn't necessarily practice during the week, and there's been little-to-no error,” Pitcher said. “And it feels like every time the ball has gone his way, I think with the exception of maybe one play (Sept. 27) in Pittsburgh, since he's really shown up in January, whenever the heck it was, he's made plays. So, it's hard to keep a guy like that off the field.”
Among the work Meyers put in after signing his contract in January was a short-notice car trip from Atlanta to Cincinnati to work out with the Bengals one morning in July.
About a week before training camp, Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow texted Meyers at night to see if he was in town and to workout the following morning.
“He was like, ‘I can be.’ And I was like, ‘can you be here tomorrow at 11?’ And he’s like, ‘yeah,’” Burrow said. “Come to find out he drove from Atlanta that night to be there to throw the next day. That’s the kind of guy that he is.”
This wasn't a hard decision for Meyers. The opportunity didn't intimidate him either. He had come too far and placed too many bets on himself to pass up the opportunity to get in extra work at the request of one of the great quarterbacks of the modern game, not to mention a possible teammate if Meyers stuck around in Cincinnati.
The drive through the night was long. Meyers said he didn’t even have firms plans on where he’d stay until after the workout concluded.
“It was nice and smooth,” Meyers said of the drive to Cincinnati. “I was excited. I had a whole bunch of music going on.”
Meyers eventually got a hotel room − after the workout and recovery routine was finished.
Meyers' personal following is growing in Cincinnati but extends across North America. He is still grabbing attention for the right reasons. Now, it just seems to be coming with a little more ease than when he was a zero-star high school recruit.
“There’s not many better people and teammates to be around than Dohnte,” Mueller said. “We’re extremely proud of him. He’s got an entire province of new Bengals fans pulling for him up here.”
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Bengals WR Dohnte Meyers attracts attention no matter where he plays
