The Cincinnati Bengals’ offensive personality doesn’t need much explanation.

Joe Burrow. Ja’Marr Chase. Tee Higgins. Chase Brown.

Good luck.

Head coach Zac Taylor runs one of the NFL’s most pass-heavy offenses and does so unapologetically.

And throughout the five seasons with Burrow leading a passing juggernaut, the team has churned out productive seasons at tight end, no matter who has lined up wearing a number in the 80s.

The lessons learned in feeding C.J. Uzomah, Hayden Hurst, Tanner Hudson, Mike Gesicki and others were altered last season with the arrival of fourth-round pick Erick All. The Bengals discovered a weapon in running two tight ends and a toughness on the ground that helped marry the run and pass games more effectively. They found a way to amplify Gesicki’s unique receiving skills.

All of this made the Bengals’ tight end room feel like it should have a curtain down the middle. On one side are Gesicki and Hudson, who are almost solely receivers. On the other are Drew Sample and Cam Grandy, almost solely blockers. They’ve since added Noah Fant to find a role closer to the middle ground, though he’s predominantly a weapon as a receiver.

“Tight ends come in all shapes and sizes, and our room this year really is a testament to that,” tight ends coach James Casey said.

It looks like a challenging task to combine all these skill sets to create a diverse group capable of keeping the defense guessing.

Taylor doesn’t see it that way.

“It’s been fun,” he said. “I wouldn’t say challenge; it’s been really fun to find ways to utilize a lot of guys who continue to earn opportunity.”

The evolution of how the Bengals have utilized the group comes from years of lessons, and with Fant’s arrival, another injection of creativity is in progress.

A team with multiple weapons on the outside can also have multiple personalities thanks to this diverse collection of skill sets and schematic twists.

Third-year receiver Andrei Iosivas calls it “doing a Mike Gesicki.” Otherwise known as the art of improvising a route and turning it into something else based on the coverage and chemistry with Burrow.

“If you watch Mike, a lot of his routes are feel-the-zone routes,” Iosivas said. “He’ll kind of change his route. We give him a lot of freedom in the offense just because he is so crafty, and he knows where the other guys are in the route concepts. He does a lot of his own stuff. Everyone in the room is learning from him and how he does that kind of stuff. Obviously, not everyone has the freedom he has, but he’s the best in the league at that, for sure.”

That level of trust from the quarterback ends up getting your name called out as a priority signing, as it did when Burrow asked for “Mike G” to get paid along with Higgins, Chase and Trey Hendrickson back in February.

Gesicki’s role in the offense is interesting, as he’s the most pass-heavy tight end in the NFL. He occasionally spent time in receiver meeting rooms in previous stops, but he hasn’t done that this year. That’s largely because he learns all the receiving pieces he needs in the full offense meetings.

Gesicki was on the field last year for 502 snaps, and 429 were pass plays. He stayed in as a pass protector just 11 times.

Gesicki essentially serves as the third receiver behind Chase and Higgins, after finishing third on the team with 65 receptions for 665 yards last year. The issue that has followed him throughout his career is being an offensive tell, something the Bengals are trying to avoid.

His presence on the field last year meant an 85 percent chance of a pass.

“There’s going to be percentage tendencies, no doubt,” Taylor said. “But if you can find ways to get to that 20 percent or cast doubt, then you can’t just hone in. You don’t want anything to be 100 percent, that’s what you don’t want, but when everything’s in that 10 to 20 percent, then there’s going to be a doubt in your mind.”

The same theory applies to Hudson, whose awareness level in the pass game made him an instant match to this offense. He caught 58 passes and two touchdowns over the past two seasons, but after questions about sticking on the roster emerged, he has excelled with another productive training camp and a huge preseason opener with two touchdowns. That included a tough run-after-catch score on a checkdown from Burrow.

Only took one drive for Joe Burrow to lead the @Bengals to a TD 🐅

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— NFL (@NFL) August 7, 2025

To avoid tipping plays, Gesicki and Hudson will need to use their feel for how to get open inside each concept and a unique link with Burrow to do that, while not interfering with what’s happening elsewhere during the play.

“With the quarterback we have, he sees everything before it happens,” Gesicki said. “If you can be half of his intelligence level and see what happened before it happens, he’s on the same page.”

If asked to name the longest-tenured current Bengals player, most minds would go to the stars of the show. Burrow, Chase, Higgins. The usual suspects.

But the answer is Drew Sample.

Sample has become one of the offensive coaching staff’s most beloved players.

There’s a reason he was the second pick of the Zac Taylor era and the only one still here from that class. Taylor has used Sample in every way imaginable, including extended time next to Burrow in pass protection. He has also lined up attached, as a fullback and out wide, and he was even released from the backfield for a 22-yard touchdown against the Buffalo Bills two years ago.

Free Samples in the end zone

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— NFL (@NFL) November 6, 2023

Sample has mentored undrafted free agent Cam Grandy, another blocking tight end, to help him acclimate to the role after an injury to All last season.

Sample won’t be featured in the highlights or mentioned in the same breath as the team’s other offensive stars, but his respect level does live up there.

“Drew Sample’s arguably the top point-of-attack blocker and protector in football,” Taylor said. “I wouldn’t trade him out for anybody in that regard.”

Sample’s the key component to the two-tight-end personnel package they leaned into heavily last year, coming off a run as one of the heaviest three-WR teams in the league under Taylor.

The Bengals found something in these 12 personnel formations. At first, they shifted a portion of the offense away from the 11-personnel-heavy groupings when fourth-round pick All emerged and saw a spike in productivity. After he tore his ACL, those snaps went to Grandy alongside Sample, and they continued to see results.

These results were as much about Sample as anything else. An offensive coordinator having a tougher, 12-personnel package to lean into if teams are dropping out in fear of the rest of the weapons or find themselves needing a more physical offensive approach because of matchup circumstances comes in handy as a real weapon.

The versatility to change personality is invaluable.

“We did have success in 12,” offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher said. “I want that to be part of who we are moving forward. Every week will be a mix-and-match. It’s great when you have those things at your disposal. I see Noah Fant factoring into that. What does he do in that role? I can’t tell you right now; we’re going to put him in position to do the best things that skill set dictates.”

Fant arrives with a skill set more in the middle of the dramatically different corners of the room. There’s the pass-only Gesicki-Hudson quadrant and block-mostly Sample-Grandy contingent. Fant is closer to the middle, which we saw with All’s usage last year. Fant’s far more receiver than blocker but brings enough in the blocking role to be effective if Sample has taken on the tougher of the two-tight-end assignments.

If they can get enough from him in the 12-personnel packages to punish teams too scared of the passing game to commit a bigger body to stop the run, then the playbook opens up for him to find a significant role immediately.

The Bengals fully integrated Fant into the mix this week after being signed on July 31. He showed up at a portion of camp when the tight ends were working on the most advanced details of the scheme, and Fant was starting from scratch. Little by little, he has started catching up, and he has now been weaponized in the screen game and 12-personnel packages. He has shown off his speed up the seam for explosive receptions from Burrow.

Taylor and Pitcher are prepared to unleash the 27-year-old and turn him into the latest success story for a tight end coming to Cincinnati. He could be used in the same vein as All, just with a larger slant toward receiver and less dangerous at the point of attack.

The Bengals have seen a player perfectly positioned to finally take off in a career that has felt close but not quite lived up to his pedigree yet.

“He’s a first-round pick for a reason,” Casey said. “He looks the part. He’s the prototype. I’ve watched him throughout the years and been fired up about his progression. It’s a hard position. You can’t just take a screenshot of a guy as a rookie. He understands things now. It takes some time to get hardened and really understand the urgency and aggression you have to play with. I’m fired up to have him this year. Selfishly, we want him to be one of the top dogs out there.”

Fant ranks in the top 10 of qualifying tight ends in yards after the catch the past two seasons, and he ranks second in that category when filtering for third and fourth downs. The idea of giving Burrow another outlet capable of making a play after the catch is enticing, and the gradual growth of his package this week shows his time to take over the role, and likely push Grandy and Hudson into the background, will be here soon.

“He’s explosive, he’s fast, he’s powerful. Got big, powerful strides, and he can function as a blocker in 12 personnel in a number of different roles,” Pitcher said. “We obviously have a vision for how we’re going to use him and how we’re going to use his skill set, and you guys will get a chance to see that soon enough.”

How do you make all these different groups work together? Very carefully.

Casey spends the majority of his time in meetings talking about blocking and run schemes. There’s far more nuance and information to digest in that aspect, even if Gesicki and Hudson probably won’t end up in that position during the year.

“I try to do a good job of balancing it. Not just showing run game stuff all the time; then I’ll show some pass game stuff,” Casey said, “just kind of keep everybody happy.”

Inevitably, morphing the offensive identity from week to week through the lens of the tight ends can only happen for one reason.

“I like smart football players,” Taylor said. “I like guys that can pick it up quickly. We ask a lot of our tight ends in terms of their alignments. Sometimes we try to trim the play call by making the tight end learn more because they’ve proven — Drew has kind of always set that standard for us, and we build it off of that. That’s a high standard. Now Mike (Gesicki) in Year 2 has picked that up. Tanner (Hudson), in Year 3, has picked that up.”

Expect the plan to evolve offensively again this year. It does every year. The wide versatility of this group keeps the Bengals offense malleable. Breaking trends and keeping just enough variance has made all of them dangerous and Cincinnati a tight end haven that attracted Gesicki and Fant to town.

For all the long days of working tendencies and schematic counters and the infusion of new concepts, there’s also the Bengals’ trump card. When the Bengals decide to pass, it often doesn’t matter if you know what’s coming.

“There’s also times we lean into it and say, ‘We’re throwing the ball. Here we go,’” Taylor said. “So there’s just ways we try to be efficient and explosive, and those tight ends have been a big part in why we’ve been able to do that because of the roles they all play.”