Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow said earlier this week that the team has “everything we need” to contend for a Super Bowl title and he doubled down on his belief in the team’s capabilities at a press conference on Wednesday.
The Bengals spent the offseason targeting additions to their defense and added defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence, edge rusher Boye Mafe, safety Bryan Cook, defensive tackle Jonathan Allen, second-round edge rusher Cashius Howell, and third-round cornerback Tacario Davis to the unit. The result is a group that Burrow feels stands apart from the teams he’s been on since he came to Cincinnati.
“I think this is the most talented roster that we’ve had since I’ve been here . . . We got guys that work really hard to put themselves in position to perform well, perform to our standard,” Burrow said. “We haven’t necessarily done that for a couple of years, so we brought some guys in who have been there and done that and have their own standard of play and are going to live up to that. Now we just have to come together as a unit and do it as a collective.”
Health has been another shortcoming for the Bengals in recent seasons and there’s no way to know how things will play out on that front come the fall. If it does, the talent on hand should position the Bengals for better results than the ones that left Burrow despondent near the end of the 2025 season.
Joe Burrow expressed his frustration at the end of an injury-plagued 2025 season. The Bengals quarterback said he needed to have fun if he was going to keep playing football.
Missing nine games wasn’t fun, and neither was the team missing the postseason for a third consecutive season.
Burrow, though, is satisfied with what the Bengals have done this offseason in attempting to rebuild their defense.
“They’re going to keep getting great players to come play for the Bengals, and when they do that, then it’s my job and Zac’s job and the leaders of this team to bring the locker room together and then go execute on the field,” Burrow said Monday, via Geoff Hobson of the team website. “We have everything we need.
“We made a big trade for a big-time player. Signed a free agent top safety on the market and other additions. We’ll see how the rookies end up. . . . But first impressions, we’ve got guys that care about the game, care about their job, and want to be great. When you have young guys like that and veterans like we do, it’s a recipe for success.”
Burrow pointed specifically to the acquisitions of defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence, safety Bryan Cook and edge rusher Jonathan Allen.
“You can feel the vibe and the leadership has changed in the locker room a little bit,” Burrow said. “It’s exciting for everyone.
“B. Cook, in the limited time he’s been here, you can feel his presence early. Dexter, too. A lot of guys on the D-Line now. You have Jonathan Allen. Myles [Murphy] is walking around with a little more pep in his step this year. That’s exciting to see. I think he grew in confidence from the last five, six games. We need to carry that over, and I’m excited to see that.”
The Bengals have seven consecutive 1 p.m. starts to open the season, a first in Burrow’s seven seasons.
“That’s good. When we go on the road, we get back home early and watch more football,” Burrow said. “It’s always beneficial to watch more games. See how teams are playing and what teams are doing. See what defenses are doing.
“We’ll try to get flexed a couple of times into the sweet spot later in the season. Everybody feels like this is going to be an exciting season for us, so now we put in the work over the next several months to put the pieces in place to get to where we want.”
NFL Network lost its schedule-release show. It’s nevertheless gaining a late-season Saturday doubleheader.
In Week 16, on the day after Christmas, NFLN will televise a game at 4:30 p.m. ET and 8:00 p.m. ET.
The schedule identifies four potential games for the two slots: Buccaneers-Falcons, Bengals-Colts, Commanders-Vikings, and Panthers Steelers.
The decision as to which games will slide from Sunday to Saturday will be made during the season.
Coupled with a Thursday night game and three Christmas Day games, Week 16 will have 10 total windows — one more than Thanksgiving week. That leaves only eight games to be played on the Saturday afternoon windows.
We don’t know if Fernando Mendoza will be starting at quarterback for the Raiders in Week 1 of the regular season, but we do know who the Raiders will be playing in the first overall pick’s potential debut.
The NFL’s schedule reveal on Thursday night shows that the Raiders will host the Dolphins at 4:25 p.m. ET on Sunday, September 13. The game will be on Fox.
Mendoza will have to get the nod over Kirk Cousins in order to start for the Raiders. Offseason addition Malik Willis is expected to make his first appearance for the Dolphins. Both teams will definitely have head coaches making their offseason debut as Las Vegas hired Klint Kubiak in February and Miami hired Jeff Hafley in January.
Sunday will also feature a pair of divisional games in the late afternoon window. The Packers will visit the Vikings while the Commanders will be in Philadelphia to renew their acquaintance with the Eagles. The NFC North matchup will be on CBS while the NFC East clash will be broadcast by Fox.
The other late game on Sunday afternoon will see the Cardinals visiting the Chargers on CBS. Arizona could have Jacoby Brissett, Gardner Minshew or rookie Carson Beck at quarterback for that contest.
The 1 p.m. ET games will send the Bills to Houston for a date with the Texans while the Browns go on the road against the Jaguars. The Colts will host the Ravens, the Saints will visit the Lions, the Buccaneers will travel to Cincinnati for Dexter Lawrence’s first game as a Bengal, and the Steelers will kick off the Mike McCarthy era — with or without Aaron Rodgers — at home against the Falcons.
Previous reports revealed that the Jets will be in Tennessee and that the Bears will head to Charlotte to face the Panthers. The Jets-Titans game will be on CBS along with the Bills-Texans, Ravens-Colts and Browns-Jaguars games. All the other 1 p.m. games will be on Fox.
The entire Week 1 slate will kick off on Wednesday, September 9 with a Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl rematch in Seattle on NBC. Thursday will bring a Netflix game between the 49ers and Rams in the NFL’s first game in Melbourne and Sunday night will find the Cowboys at MetLife Stadium to meet the Giants on NBC’s Sunday Night Football. Those games were all announced ahead of Thursday’s full schedule reveal, which was also the case for the ESPN Monday night game between the Broncos and Chiefs in Kansas City.
Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins had his second straight double-digit touchdown season in 2025, but he fell short of another individual goal for the third straight year.
Higgins picked up 846 yards on 59 catches and he has failed to reach the 1,000-yard mark since the 2022 campaign. During an interview with Rob Gregson of A to Z Sports, Higgins said he has designs on ending that streak this fall.
“I’m trying to shoot for that 1,000 yards this year. I missed that the last few seasons,” Higgins said. “I’m trying to get at least 10 touchdowns. Just throwing some goals out there,”
Higgins missed 10 games over the 2023 and 2024 seasons, but was able to play in 15 games last year. Many of those games came without quarterback Joe Burrow, however, and the inability for the Bengals to match a healthy offense with a quality defense has kept them out of the playoffs the last three years.
The offseason has been devoted to beefing up that defense and getting better health on offense would be a step toward fulfilling all of the individual and team goals in Cincinnati this time around.
New Bengals defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence wanted No. 97 from Shemar Stewart. And Lawrence has gotten it.
Stewart told reporters this week that he surrendered 97 for an undisclosed fee.
“Man, he earned that, so it’s his number,” Stewart said, via Noelle Blumel of WCPO. “So I had no right to keep that number.”
The conversation between Lawrence and Stewart was simple. “Dex [was] like, ‘What you want for the number?’” Stewart said. “Told him a reasonable number. And he’s like, ‘OK.’ Here, I told him, like, ‘I’m not gonna be the one to stop you from getting your number. I’m not that type of guy. You’re probably like a walking legend.’”
Stewart has moved to No. 94, which was worn by Sam Hubbard from 2018 through 2024. Defensive tackle Jordan Jefferson wore No. 94 in 2025; he has now moved to No. 68.
Four quarterbacks will be featured on the third season of the Netflix series Quarterback.
The streaming service announced on Wednesday that Cam Ward, Jayden Daniels, Baker Mayfield, and Joe Flacco will be featured on this edition of the show. The show will chronicle the quarterbacks’ experiences during the 2025 season and will premiere on July 14.
Each quarterback’s storyline should have some interesting moments. Ward went through his rookie season with the Titans after being selected with the first pick of the draft while Daniels’s much-anticipated second season with the Commanders was wiped out by injuries. Mayfield thrived early in the year, but he and the Buccaneers struggled later in a year that ended without a playoff berth. Flacco opened the season as the starter for the Browns, but was traded to the Bengals to fill in for the injured Joe Burrow.
Burrow Kirk Cousins, Jared Goff, Patrick Mahomes, and Marcus Mariota were featured on the first two seasons of the show.
The Bengals announced the signing of another draft pick on Wednesday afternoon.
Third-round pick Tacario Davis has signed his four-year rookie deal with the club. The cornerback is the sixth of the team’s seven selections to sign his first NFL deal.
Second-round defensive end Cashius Howell is the only unsigned member of the draft class. The five other players in the group signed with the team last weekend.
Davis spent three seasons at Arizona before transferring to Washington for his final year in college. He had 95 tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss, 25 passes defensed, three interceptions and one fumble recovery over 37 total collegiate games.
All of the international matchups for the 2026 NFL season were announced on Wednesday morning.
We already knew the first two games on the schedule. The 49ers and Rams will meet in the NFL’s first-ever game in Melbourne, Australia in Week 1 while the Ravens and Cowboys will head to Brazil to play a game in Rio in Week 3.
There will be three straight weeks of games in London kicking off the next week. The Colts will face the Commanders at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in Week 4 and the Eagles and Jaguars will square off in the same place the next week. The Jaguars will stay in London to take on the Texans at Wembley Stadium in Week 6.
From there, it will be on to Paris for the first time in league history. The Steelers will battle the Saints at Stade de France in Week 7.
The Bengals-Falcons matchup in Madrid in Week 9 was announced earlier this week and it will be followed by a Patriots-Lions clash at Allianz Arena in Munich the next weekend. The NFL’s return to Mexico City will come in Week 11 when the Vikings and the 49ers square off on Sunday Night Football.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has talked about his desire to see the league play international games each week and the NFL is moving closer to that goal in 2026.
While the Bengals were struggling to win games in 2025, wide receiver Andrei Iosivas was struggling to deal with a barrage of online invective.
Iosivas was credited with five dropped passes during the regular season and he said on Tuesday that they triggered a lot of vitriol on his social media accounts. Iosivas said that the messages made him “angry” and that he had a difficult time compartmentalizing those emotions.
“I feel like last year I was in my head a little bit,” Iosivas said, via Ben Baby of ESPN.com. “I had those drops in those games and people were telling me to kill myself and all that kind of stuff. I never had that kind of stuff happen to me before. So it got in my head a little bit when people — you know, when your DMs are flooded with people telling you to kill yourself.”
Iosivas finished the year with 33 catches for 435 yards and two touchdowns. He explained how he has shifted his mindset to prepare for his fourth season in Cincinnati.
“Just not letting outside noise get to me and letting circumstances get to me,” Iosivas said. “I know I’m a great player so [I’m] not letting people’s opinions or things in the building kind of just irritate me.”
Iosivas has been the team’s third wideout with Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins the last two seasons. The only significant addition to the Bengals’ receiving corps was fourth-rounder Colbie Young, so Iosivas should get plenty of chances to put a difficult 2025 behind him.
