Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow thinks this year’s additions on defense make Cincinnati a Super Bowl contender. And wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase agrees.
Burrow appeared on Chase’s podcast and the two of them discussed how excited they are about this year’s defense.
“I just want to win this year,” Burrow said. “I just want to win. The rest will take care of itself. I think we’ll break a bunch of records eventually, but I think we’re going to have a really good team that has a chance to win every game that we step foot on the field for. I don’t know about you, but I could really feel it in my bones, in my soul in OTAs this year, different from years past. Where we brought in a lot of the right guys, a lot of the right people with the right mindsets to go and chase this goal of winning a Super Bowl and winning as many games as we can and being the best possible team that we can. I felt it from our D-line. I felt it from our defense. Our offense has the same guys as years past, so we felt that for the last couple years, as good as we’ve been. But these veteran guys that we brought in on defense to be able to help our younger guys.”
Chase compared this year’s Bengals to the 2021 team that lost Super Bowl LVI to the Rams.
“I can feel it too. The fact that our defense talks a little trash, I like that,” Chase said. “That’s what we need. It feels like 2021 all over again, with the guys talking trash, because we had a lot of guys who talked on defense.”
Burrow repeatedly used the word “excited” when discussing the aggressive move the Bengals’ front office made to trade the No. 10 overall pick in the draft to the Giants for defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence.
“I’m just excited to see Dexter out there. I’m excited to see big Dex out there,” Burrow said. “I’m excited to see Dex in uniform. I’m excited to see what he can do for us. That’s not something we’ve done in the past, trade a first-round pick for a player like that. I know the fans were excited, I’m just as excited.”
Burrow is heading into his seventh year with the Bengals, and they’ve only made the playoffs twice. He believes this is going to be a big year. If it’s not, some big questions are going to be raised about the direction the franchise is heading in.
Bengals defensive end Shemar Stewart returned to practice on Wednesday, ESPN’s Ben Baby reports.
It was Stewart’s first practice since hyperextending his left knee on the first practice of training camp July 29.
Stewart was carted off the field with what initially appeared to be a serious injury. However, an MRI showed no ligament damage, and Stewart has rehabbed his way back to the field five weeks later.
He was wearing a brace on his left knee on Wednesday.
The No. 17 overall pick of the 2025 draft, Stewart missed time last season with right ankle and left knee injuries. He appeared in eight games with five starts as a rookie.
Stewart recorded one sack with two tackles for loss, four quarterback hits and one pass defensed last year.
The Buccaneers are headed into Week 1 with a pair of question marks at the top of their wide receiver group.
Emeka Egbuka has been sidelined by a toe injury and Jalen McMillan has a knee injury that’s also kept him off the field recently. They were both working on the side during Wednesday’s practice, which is progress from past days and head coach Todd Bowles was asked about their outlook during a press conference.
“They’re headed in the right direction,” Bowles said. “I don’t know how fast. I’ll have a better gauge next week. They’re moving forward every day, so we’ll see next week.”
The Bucs will start issuing injury reports for their Week 1 game against the Bengals next Wednesday and the status of the two wideouts will be high on the list of concerns once they come out.
The Bengals are practicing without their top two wideouts on Tuesday.
Reporters at the team’s workout share that neither Ja’Marr Chase nor Tee Higgins is participating. Chase hyperextended his knee during a practice last week and Higgins is dealing with a heel contusion.
Head coach Zac Taylor said at a pre-practice press conference that both wideouts will be limited participants in practice throughout the week, but expressed no concern about their chances of missing the team’s Week 1 game against the Buccaneers.
Taylor also said that cornerback Dax Hill will work back into practice this week, but defensive end Shemar Stewart will remain in the rehab group as he works his way back from a knee injury.
Veteran quarterback Josh Johnson’s third stint with the Bengals will continue.
Johnson will sign with Cincinnati’s practice squad, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports.
The Bengals have just two quarterbacks on their 53-man roster in Joe Burrow and backup Joe Flacco.
Johnson, 40, signed a one-year deal with the Bengals in March after spending last season with the Commanders. He appeared in five games with two starts for Washington, completing 63 percent of his passes for 372 yards with one touchdown and two picks.
In this year’s preseason for Cincinnati, Johnson completed 60.7 percent of his passes for 396 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions.
Johnson’s long career has now seen him play for the Bucs, 49ers, Browns, Bengals, Jets, Colts, Bills, Ravens, Giants, Texans, Raiders, Lions, Commanders, and Broncos.
Joe Burrow turns 30 on December 10. As he gets deeper into his NFL career, he has decided to let it ride for as long as he can.
“I used to think I didn’t want to play very long,” Burrow told Albert Breer of SI.com, “and now I’m like, ‘I’m just going to go until I can’t do it anymore. This is fun to do. What the hell else would I do?’ I used to want to go and maybe play a different sport after a couple of Super Bowls, but now I’m like, ‘I’m just going to play until I can’t.’”
Injuries have kept him from playing as much as he would have liked during the first six years of his career. His plan for Year 7 includes managing the game to reduce the chances of more absences, based on lessons he learned last year after returning from toe surgery.
“It’s where there’s a free runner in the pocket and I just dirt it, or a keeper and I get pressure, and I just throw it away, where normally my physical ability would have let me make that guy miss and go make a play; last year I couldn’t,” Burrow said. “I had to get rid of the ball and live to see another down a little bit. Not being able to move around, I had to tailor my game to that. And so, as I said, I can play quarterback a lot of different ways. When it’s needed in the fourth quarter, I can go and do that. . . . I can mitigate risk early in the game until it’s needed.”
And the desire to stay healthy isn’t just about pursuing a championship. Burrow knows from experience that being able to play is dramatically better than the alternative.
“Two out of the last three seasons, I’ve missed extended time,” Burrow told Breer. “I’ve put a lot of work into this. When that happens, that sucks, quite frankly. So I’m just excited to play. When you’re hurt, you’re away from the team, you’re away from the guys. You’re not going through it like they are. It’s a lonely process.”
For now, the loneliness has been replaced with anticipation and optimism. That all potentially changes once the games start. And the reality for the Bengals is that, after a Super Bowl appearance and an AFC title game in back-to-back years, the playoff drought is at three straight seasons. The overriding focus entering 2026 is to put that to an end, convincingly.
The Bengals’ first change to their initial 53-man roster involves an offensive lineman.
They have claimed tackle Myles Hinton off of waivers. Hinton was one of four former Eagles who moved onto new teams after being waived during Sunday’s cut to 53 players.
Hinton was a sixth-round pick in 2025 after finishing up his college career as Michigan’s left tackle. He spent his rookie season on injured reserve.
The Bengals kept nine offensive linemen on their initial roster. The group includes four tackles with Orlando Brown Jr. and Amarius Mims on the first team and Javon Foster and Jalen Rivers on the second team.
Not many teams that have missed the playoffs for three straight seasons are viewed as a team of destiny. That isn’t stopping Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow from attempting to speak a Super Bowl win into existence.
“I’ve never understood why people are scared to say it,” Burrow told Albert Breer of SI.com. “I guess people get scared of how the media will portray them or their team in a certain way. But you have to set expectations with yourself, your teammates, your organization. Everybody says they want to win the Super Bowl, you talk about it every day, you set that expectation every day, you go and work for it every single day. I mean, I don’t know the answer to that for everybody, but that’s what I want to do, that’s what I’m trying to do, that’s what I do this for.
“I won the championship in college, and there’s no freaking better feeling than that. And if you don’t talk about it, I don’t know how you can do it.”
He’s right about that. He’s also right about the other 31 teams having the same goal. Whether they talk about it or not, they enter each season at 0-0 and with high hopes.
For Burrow, he’s basing his belief on something tangible. He’s comparing the vibe at the 2026 Bengals to the sense he had at LSU, seven years ago.
“I don’t know, it just felt inevitable,” Burrow told Breer. “We finished stronger the year before. I knew how good Justin [Jefferson] was. I didn’t quite know how good Ja’Marr [Chase] was going to be yet because his superpower is after the catch, and in practice you can’t really see that. He was getting open and making plays. Obviously, that’s what he does, but what makes him one of one is after the catch. I realized that somewhere in the early 2019 season.
“But, yeah, I just knew how things felt around the building. I knew how practices were going. I knew that offense fit my skill set more so than any one I had been in. It just made sense to me. As I said, there was just a feeling around the building that it was inevitable.”
Burrow’s confidence in the Bengals is bolstered by the other side of the ball.
“The vibe of the defense is really good right now,” Burrow said. “Our defensive line is so deep this year. The depth of that unit was a weak point last year, [but] now we have nine or 10 guys that we feel good about putting out there in five-down sets. Obviously, Dexter [Lawrence II] plays a big role in that. Jonathan Allen plays a big role in that. And those guys have been vocal leaders for us to start this out, which is something that we needed.”
Whatever happens, the stakes are high. A fourth straight year with no postseason appearance will likely spark a coaching change. And it could make Burrow, after seven years in Cincinnati, look for a place where it will seem even more inevitable that he’ll be smoking a locker-room cigar in one or more of the remaining Februarys of his career.
The Bengals have set their initial 53-man roster.
Quarterback Josh Johnson’s release was reported earlier on Sunday and the team also waived Sean Clifford, which leaves Joe Flacco as the only quarterback behind Joe Burrow on the active roster.
The Bengals also waived or released running backs Gary Brightwell, Kentrel Bullock, Jamal Haynes, and Kendall Milton; defensive backs Daijahn Anthony, Jalen Kimber, Bralyn Lux, Matthew McDoom, Ceyair Wright, and Russ Yeast; linebackers Liam Anderson, Jack Dingle, Joe Giles-Harris, Eric Gentry, and Shaka Heyward; offensive linemen Liam Brown, Andrew Coker, Christian Jones, and Corey Robinson; defensive linemen Howard Cross III, Isaiah Foskey, McKinnley Jackson, Jordan Jefferson, and Antwaun Powell-Ryland; wide receivers Xavier Johnson, Charlie Jones, Jordan Moore, Kendric Pryor, Noah Thomas, and Mitch Tinsley; and tight ends Cam Grandy and Josh Kattus.
Guard Brian Parker and cornerback Ja’Sir Taylor were placed on injured reserve. Both players are eligible to return after missing four games.
Quarterback Josh Johnson will have a chance to add to the long list of teams that have employed him over the course of his NFL career.
Adam Schefter of ESPN reports that Johnson will be released as part of the Bengals’ cut to 53 players on Sunday. Johnson was behind Joe Burrow and Joe Flacco on the depth chart with Sean Clifford also on hand this summer.
Johnson played in five games and made two starts for the Commanders in 2025. He’s appeared in games for five other teams and spent time with 14 clubs since entering the league as a 2008 fifth-round pick of the Buccaneers.
That experience could help him find a spot on another roster before Week 1 kicks off in less than two weeks.
