The tape and the stats are impossible to deny.
The Washington Commanders only needed seven plays against the Bengals’ starting defense to score two touchdowns. This was after allowing a touchdown and a field goal drive to the Philadelphia Eagles the week prior.
They are allowing 11.4 yards per carry. The starters only forced an opponent to reach third down twice.
Somehow, the tape looked worse than the numbers.
Easy completions for Eagles backup QB Tanner McKee, massive holes for explosive runs from the likes of Chris Rodriguez and Will Shipley. Failure to come close to tackling Jayden Daniels when the quarterback was surrounded by Bengals eight yards from the end zone.
Coming off a 2024 where the Bengals defense reached historical levels of ineffectiveness, these drives felt as demoralizing as they have been like deja vu around Cincinnati.
Inside Paycor Stadium, doom, gloom and deja vu were far from the reaction to the 24 points allowed in four preseason drives by the starting defense.
“I’ll be excited to get through this preseason and play real football and do the things I’ve seen us do in practice,” head coach Zac Taylor said. “There’s good learning experience for a couple of the guys that were in positions there, that we need to improve at and be better at, because you’ll see it again at some point in the year, but again, I like the direction our defense is going. I think there’s a lot of positivity there.”
These comments Wednesday, echoing those made after Monday night’s 31-17 win in Washington, D.C., were met with understandable public resistance.
Media members and fans filling the social media news cycle still have visceral memories of the Bengals scoring 99 points in three critical mid-season games last year, only to go 0-3, allowing 113 to the Ravens, Chargers and Steelers.
Sure, new defensive coordinator Al Golden will alter the scheme, but largely the same cast of characters from the 2024 nightmare are back. Then the first public glimpses of his group provided the same ugly results.
Yet, there’s positivity? How can that be? Well, in their eyes, this comes back to the picture they chose to show.
“Any blame on that goes absolutely on my shoulders,” Golden said. “That’s a decision that we made in conjunction with Zac and just trying to limit anybody’s purview in terms of what we’re doing. So again, from that standpoint, what we have to do better in every phase of the game is, we need to tackle better. We need to take the ball away. We need to be situationally aware. All those little things are really what the standard is in terms of what we’re trying to get done in these games, but not necessarily trying to out-scheme somebody.”
Golden called the games “a changeup” for his group, not showing any of their standard defensive movement and strategies. All part of the design to gain whatever advantage they can in Week 1 in Cleveland.
“What our identity is on tape,” Taylor said, “there’s no reason to put it out there right now.”
Players like sixth-year veteran linebacker Logan Wilson felt the difference in not challenging beyond base schematics during his 21 preseason snaps.
“We are only running 10 or 15 percent of what we are truly running,” sixth-year linebacker Logan Wilson said. “You really just want to work on your technique, your fundamentals, tackling and turnovers and stuff like that. It’s just how the preseason has gone for us … not making any excuses, we can always play better, but it’s not necessarily something I really worry about right now.”
The odd aspect has been that the defense actually looked quite good in camp. The defense has played well against JoeBurrow and friends through 18 practices. They’ve frustrated Ja’Marr Chase into throwing a football at Jordan Battle. They’ve knocked down passes for Tee Higgins at the high point. They’ve stuffed Chase Brown. They’ve picked off Burrow.
“Every one of our practices are more back and forth than the games have been,” Wilson said.
The theme of Bengals training camp this year was the playmaking and confidence coming from this defense. Yes, this Bengals offense chalked up plenty of wins, but the defense did as well, which left a much larger impression than what transpired on the field.
On Wednesday, since Cincinnati’s starters aren’t participating on Saturday, the team rolled out a 35-play scrimmage for the starting group (plus 16 second-team plays). Shemar Stewart batted down a pass, Oren Burks made a tackle for loss at the goal line, Dax Hill broke up a pass intended for Chase. The defense only allowed one touchdown.
It was the type of performance Golden, Taylor and the entire defensive unit have referenced when questioned about the preseason game issues. They don’t believe the game results were indicative of the team they’ve proven to be over the larger sample size on the practice fields.
“I see it every day,” Golden said. “I see it every day. I see it every day. And I see it against a really good offense every day. That’s all I need to know. Look, I’m like you; I worry about every facet of the defense. So if we don’t fit a run well, that’s a concern. If we didn’t tackle well, that’s a concern. But at the same time, I want to make sure that they know every day the standard is won or lost out here in terms of operating the way we want to operate. I think the guys have made a lot of progress with that.”
What does the disconnect between practice and the game, specifically, look like?
Players pointed out they didn’t practice or gameplan for any plays Philadelphia or Washington would be expected to run. For example, take the 27-yard touchdown run by Jacory Croskey-Merritt on the second drive. Three pullers led the way on a counter off right tackle. Edge Stewart, the first-round pick, came in too high, opening up the hole on one side and second-round pick Demetrius Knight didn’t attack aggressively enough, opening it up on the other. Then Wilson couldn’t fill behind Knight, who ended up by his legs and stumbled 12 yards downfield while Croskey-Merritt crossed the goal line.
Rookie Jacory Croskey-Merritt goes by "Bill"
Bill just went 27 yards to the 🏠
Watch on ESPN
Stream on @NFLPlus and ESPN+ pic.twitter.com/UD9tot9Iau— NFL (@NFL) August 19, 2025
Two rookies against a scheme they hadn’t seen, in a defensive set not designed well to stop it and without a practice to walk through the technique of combating the concept. In season, they would have run through it on a Thursday run-fits session, as well as multiple times in meetings.
Instead, two rookies learning it for the first time got exposed, and Washington posted another explosive on the beleaguered Bengals defense. That play doesn’t change the opinion of Knight, who’s a prime example of why optimism and bad tape exist simultaneously.
“I think there’s learning to be done for him,” Taylor said. “But he’s had an outstanding camp and a guy that we’re really excited about … and Demetrius is a guy who really sees something once, and you make a correction and the next time, he’s lights out. His improvement is going to continue to be through the roof for us.”
Taylor goes back through his notes from past preseasons and chuckles. He rereads about the real concern about Chase’s drops in 2021 before he went on to win Offensive Rookie of the Year. The learning curve of Wilson in 2020. Cam Taylor-Britt battling immaturity before starting the final 12 games of his rookie year, including playoffs, where the Bengals went 10-2.
“I’ve never read too much in the preseason,” Taylor said. “I mean, if we read into the preseason, Ja’Marr wouldn’t have played a down for us.”
Inevitably, if you believe the shots being fired from every public angle at the Cincinnati defense for the preseason disaster or the rosier view of camp practices where this scheme has given one of the best offenses in football daily trouble, the opinion doesn’t matter.
Week 1 in Cleveland, they will be judged with rookies in the lineup, the scheme at full-go and a fast-start narrative hanging in the balance. What does it look like then? The rest of what is happening this August is just talk. The Bengals aren’t viewing it as anything more.
“We want to go out there and shut down every offense we play in the preseason and score a bunch of points,” Taylor said, “but an overreaction to five to 10 plays, you’re not going to get that from me, I can promise you that.”
