The Bengals currently sit at 3-5 and face an uphill battle to make the playoffs, and the front office isn’t planning to help (or hurt) the team’s aspirations. According to Paul Dehner Jr. of The Athletic, the organization doesn’t “have plans to make moves with the trade deadline approaching.”
As Dehner writes, the Bengals front office doesn’t have any intention of “waving the white flag,” but they also don’t intend to give up draft assets that may help them in the future. The organization believes there’s still a path to the playoffs with their current roster, and they’ll rely on their young pieces to patch any weaknesses.
Specifically, the team will be hoping for elevated play from 2023 first-round pick Myles Murphy and 2021 third-round pick Joseph Ossai on the edge, and they’ll be counting on second-round rookie Kris Jenkins to add some interior DL help opposite Sheldon Rankins and B.J. Hill. The team has also made some OL tweaks via the practice squad circuit, and Dehner believes they’ll continue to tap into that well moving forward.
Similarly, the Bengals won’t deal any of their popular trade candidates, including wideout Tee Higgins and defensive end Trey Hendrickson. As Dehner observes, the Bengals have been reluctant to make in-season sales. The team has sold off only a pair of disgruntled players over the past 13 deadlines: quarterback Carson Palmer in 2011 and defensive end Carlos Dunlap in 2020. Those players effectively had “hostile relationship[s] beyond repair,” and those issues aren’t apparent on this year’s squad.
Dehner also points to the lost 2019 season, when the Bengals refused to sell veteran wideout A.J. Green and veteran defensive tackle Geno Atkins despite clearly being out of it by the trade deadline. While the front office has changed their thinking on some antiquated mentalities (like their approach to QB contracts), Dehner believes the team will be stubborn with their deadline strategy…a factor that bodes well for Higgins and Hendrickson still being on the squad next week.
