The Cincinnati Bengals march closer to that first preseason game. Today we saw some young players really open some eyes. We continue to see the defense hold its own against Joe Burrow and the offense.
We are a week away from the first preseason game, and it is getting very interesting to see how some of these position battles progress.
Colbie Young makes his case for WR3 as Andrei Iosivas struggles
One thing that has been an issue since Tyler Boyd’s departure from the team is the lack of a consistent third option behind Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins. Iosivas looked like he was going to fit perfectly right into that role, but he has had issues with drops and being able to consistently beat the weaker coverage he is afforded by having the other receivers drawing so much attention.
The Bengals drafted Young in the fourth round, and this was two years after the experiment of Jermaine Burton blew up in their face. This team wants healthy competition at that area, and so far Young has been doing just that. He has the athletic profile and hands to absolutely destroy single coverage. And he has shown he can make plays over the middle the past few days. It will be interesting to see how this plays out moving forward with Iosivas in a contract year.
Cashius Howell wows against first team
Howell was expected to be a rotational pass rusher coming into his rookie season. The one thing every evaluator agreed on pre-draft was that his bag of pass rush moves is incredibly deep. Many expected that to be mainly finesse given his stature, but he takes down one of the biggest offensive linemen in the NFL here in Orlando Brown Jr. with pure power.
He may even be afforded more of an opportunity to show his skills as his former Texas A&M teammate is going to be out a few weeks, missing these invaluable reps.
The rest of the highlights and notes
These are some of the smaller headlines that are just fun to include even if they aren’t worthy of their own section. Tacorio Davis mixing it up with Young and a flashback to a much darker time with Chase getting a day off.
