The Bengals brought in some help at running back last week at the trading deadline and are looking at some more.
Per NFL Media, Cincinnati is working out Leonard Fournette on Monday.
Fournette, 29, has not been with a team this year. He spent time with the Bills last season, appearing in two games. He took 12 carries for 40 yards.
The No. 4 overall pick of the 2017 draft, Fournette played his first three seasons with the Jaguars before spending three seasons with Tampa Bay. He rushed for 300 yards with there touchdowns in the 2020 postseason, helping the Buccaneers win Super Bowl LV.
Cincinnati traded for Khalil Herbert last week after running back Zack Moss went down with a neck injury. Chase Brown leads the team with 521 rushing yards with five touchdowns.
At 4-6, the Bengals will play the Chargers on Sunday night in Week 11.
It’s been more than six months since veteran cornerback Xavien Howard told teams he had been cleared to return from a foot injury, but there’s been no news of any teams showing interest. Until today.
Howard will be in Cincinnati visiting the Bengals today, according to Mike Garafolo of NFL Network.
The 31-year-old Howard was a second-round draft pick of the Dolphins in 2016 and has played his entire NFL career in Miami. He’s been a first-team All-Pro once, a Pro Bowler four times and led the NFL in interceptions in both 2018 and 2020.
Howard missed the end of last season because of the foot injury but started every game he was healthy enough to play last year. If he’s able to return to his previous level, he could be a significant addition to the Bengals or some other team hoping to bolster its secondary down the stretch.
The NFL fined Raiders edge rusher Maxx Crosby $11,255 for unnecessary roughness in a Nov. 3 game against the Bengals.
With two minutes left in the first half, Crosby left before the snap and was unimpeded to the quarterback. The whistle blew, and Crosby continued with his hit on Joe Burrow.
The Bengals quarterback took a hard hit, with Crosby’s helmet glancing Burrow’s before Burrow hit the ground hard.
Crosby was penalized for offsides, which was declined, and for unnecessary roughness.
Crosby had three tackles and three quarterback hits in the 41-24 Raiders loss, and Burrow threw five touchdowns.
The Patriots got Yannick Ngakoue off waivers from the Ravens yesterday. But New England isn’t the only team that wanted him.
The Bengals also put in a waiver claim for Ngakoue, according to Field Yates of ESPN. The waiver order is the same as the draft order, with the worse team getting the higher priority, so the 2-7 Patriots got Ngakoue ahead of the 4-6 Bengals.
If Ngakoue had been given the choice, it’s entirely possible that he would have preferred the Bengals, because they have a better chance of making a run to the playoffs than the Patriots do. And Ngakoue would have had a choice if the Ravens had cut him two days earlier. But the Ravens waited until after the trade deadline to move on from Ngakoue, which meant he was subject to the NFL’s waiver system and had to go to the highest-priority team that put in a claim for him.
It wouldn’t be surprising if the Ravens deliberately waited until after the trade deadline to move on from Ngakoue specifically because they wouldn’t have wanted a team they could have to compete with for an AFC playoff berth to get him. Ngakoue going to the Patriots, who have almost no chance of making the playoffs, is better for the Ravens.
No teams besides the Patriots and Bengals put in claims for Ngakoue.
They wisely refused the overtures of the Dolphins for the ability to draft Joe Burrow. And, once it became clear that Mike Brown’s stubbornness had given them a keep, they seemed to accept that, to get the most out of their franchise quarterbacks, things had to change.
They seemingly did. After years of intransigence, Brown sold the naming rights to the stadium that had been named for his father, the legendary Paul Brown. Then, after Burrow completed only three NFL seasons, the Bengals busted the juke-a-box, giving Burrow a market-level contract.
So they’ve changed, right? Right?
Maybe not. And we’ve got three (likely soon to be four) reasons for it.
First, safety Jessie Bates III. They drafted him, developed him, tagged him, and intended to replace him with first-rounder Dax Hill. The problem is that: (1) Bates has gotten even better in Atlanta; and (2) Hill has struggled to fill Bates’s shoes, to the point where he’s already been moved to a new position. And they did it because they didn’t want to pay Bates what he deserved.
Second, running back Joe Mixon. Like the Giants, the Bengals underappreciated their workhorse tailback. They were going to cut him. They ended up trading him (the existence of trade interest should have been a clue/warning). He’s performing very well in Houston. And the Bengals don’t have the rushing attack to complement Burrow and the passing game.
Third, receiver Ja’Marr Chase. They’ll eventually give him a market-level deal. But they wanted to kick the can to 2025, because that meant paying one of the best receivers in football a measly $4.8 million in 2024. And while the structure of his rookie deal kept him from holding out ($3.8 million was paid in the form of a roster bonus due early in camp), the failure to give him a new contract prompted him to hold in, to miss most of camp and all of the preseason, and to seriously contemplate not playing in Week 1. Behind the scenes, it was uglier than anyone realizes, with fights over fines and a belief by Chase that they’d broken their promise to pay him by offering a contract that looked good on the surface but that had a very bad structure.
Look at how Chase played on Thursday night. What would he have done in Week 1 against the Patriots and Week 2 against the Chiefs if he’d been fully prepared and committed and ready to roll?
Fourth, receiver Tee Higgins. They’re continuing their proven habit of using the franchise tag for one year before letting the player walk away. (The only player whom the Bengals tagged and then gave a multi-year deal was Carl Pickens, and then they cut him after the first year of it.) And Higgins has missed five of 10 games due to injury. The injuries are real, but he has no reason to play at anything less than 100 percent when he has no financial security beyond this year, because the Bengals used their CBA-guaranteed mechanism for keeping him from getting fair value on the open market.
Next year, he will. And Andrei Iosivas will become the new Higgins. Four years, maybe a fifth, and out the door.
Lather, rinse, repeat. The way they’ve always done it.
So, yes, they’ve changed as to Burrow. Otherwise, they haven’t. And there’s nothing Burrow can do about it until 2030, at the earliest.
