Bengals 2025 Roster Breakdown: Dylan Fairchild is Cincinnati's sole hope for a new guard of the future

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Bengals roster breakdown is back! During the 99 days leading up to Cincinnati’s regular season opener against the Cleveland Browns, the player with the matching jersey number as days remaining will become the day’s highlighted player.

64 days remain until the Bengals’ first game of the 2025 season, but No. 64 Ted Karras is always worthy of praising.

Dylan Fairchild

Age: 22
Year: Rookie
Position: Guard
College: Georgia
Previous Teams: None
Jersey Number: 63

Fairchild enters his first season in the NFL after being drafted 81st overall in the third round of the 2025 NFL Draft. He spent four years at Georgia and came off the bench for a total of six games during his first two seasons. His first career start came in Week 4 of the 2023 season after he played nearly most of the previous week. He would switch back and forth from left guard to right guard during the Bulldogs’ last five games of the year, but he fully settled in at LG for the entire 2024 season.

As a third-round pick, Fairchild was the second Georgia interior offensive lineman to go off the board in April’s draft. RG Tate Ratledge went in the second round, and center Jared Wilson went 14 picks later than Fairchild in the third. Cincinnati showcased interest in all three during the pre-draft process, and made Fairchild the club’s highest-drafted college guard since Kevin Zeitler was selected 27th overall in 2012.

More importantly than anything, Fairchild’s nickname is “Pickle” according to Amarius Mims. Fairchild and Mims were teammates for three years at UGA and are now reunited on the same o-line.

Contract Details

Fairchild signed his four-year, $6,421,174 rookie contract in May. He’s already earning a signing bonus of $1,309,948 this year and can earn a base salary of $840,000 this season. His potential cash earnings for this year amount to $2,149,948.

When adding on his signing bonus proration of $327,487, Fairchild’s salary cap hit for the 2025 season is $1,167,487.

Roster Outlook

It was learned minutes after he was drafted that Fairchild was the frontrunner to be the starting LG for the 2025 Bengals, and that was made clearer in the months that followed. Cincinnati had Fairchild repping with the starters, sandwiched between left tackle Orlando Brown Jr. and Ted Karras, throughout OTAs and mandatory minicamp. Don’t expect this to change once training camp rolls around.

The Bengals were in desperate need of two new guards this offseason, and while there’s a battle for which veteran between Lucas Patrick and Cody Ford claims RG, Fairchild appears to be the sole hope for LG. Cordell Volson could reprise his role if the rookie struggles immensely or gets injured, but for a new face to take over, every meaningful egg is in Fairchild’s basket for better or worse.

Projected role: Starting left guard