The infusion of talent to the Bengals defense has been a major talking point of the offseason in Cincinnati, but the impact of the team’s moves isn’t only being felt on the field.
Bengals head coach Zac Taylor said at a press conference this week that the leadership on the defensive side “has really expanded” over the last few months. The Bengals signed players like Jonathan Allen, Bryan Cook and Boye Mafe before trading for Dexter Lawrence in a move that Taylor believes fits right into that trend.
“I think just to lead by example, you know, instead of saying things and not being around,” Taylor said. “He’s been here front and center. I don’t know if he’s really left since the day he showed up in the trade. It’s just really good to have veteran leadership like that — that’s been in the building, been around, has experienced a lot of things over the seven years he’s been in the league.”
Missing the playoffs for three straight years has led to much grumbling about the Bengals’ direction, so the off-field leadership will need to translate to on-field improvement in order for Taylor and others to feel secure about where they’ll be in 2027 and beyond.
In April, ESPN reported that free-agent defensive lineman Mike Pennel is a “person of interest” in connection with the death of a woman whose body was found on property Pennel previously owned in the Dominican Republic. Pennel called the report “fake news,” and his lawyer said Pennel didn’t know the woman.
ESPN now reports that Pennel did indeed know the woman.
Citing “interviews with people close to the victim and police records reviewed by ESPN,” ESPN reports that Pennel “frequently spent time” with Carli Franchesca Guzmán Roche when Pennel was in the Dominican Republic.
She was reported missing on September 11, 2021. Her body was discovered in January 2026, when the new owner of the property was doing excavation work.
Pennel and his lawyer did not respond to “several messages” from ESPN seeking comment.
Undrafted in 2014, Pennel has played for the Packers, Jets, Chiefs, Falcons, Bears, and Bengals. In 2025, he appeared in eight games with the Bengals and eight with the Chiefs.
In 12 years, he has 154 regular-season appearances and 27 starts. He won a pair of Super Bowls with the Chiefs.
Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow hasn’t been shy about expressing his high expectations for the 2026 season.
Burrow said this offseason that this is the most talented roster he’s been on in the NFL and that the Bengals have “everything we need” to contend for a Super Bowl. Burrow was similarly upbeat about the state of the team during a Wednesday press conference and he was asked if he thinks his comments have created added pressure for the team heading into the fall.
“I hope so, I think that’s great,” Burrow said. “Put pressure on guys. I love it, I thrive in it. We’ll find out who else does. I know that we have the kind of people that want to be in that spot. I want everybody talking about the Bengals. I want everybody talking about what I’m saying in my press conferences. You go back and watch what I’ve said before the 2019 season at LSU, I feel very similarly about this team. I’m so excited to get started and get moving. I wish we would ramp this right into training camp, so we can continue to improve because I feel like there’s so much greatness that we’re gonna be able to achieve this year.”
Bengals executive vice president Katie Blackburn said this week that ownership is “certainly counting on” the team having a good season this fall. She did not specify what would qualify and didn’t say what might happen if the team falls short, but the comments from both Blackburn and Burrow suggest everyone in Cincinnati should be feeling the pressure to deliver better results.
After the 2025 season, Zac Taylor became the dean of AFC North coaches by default. He was the only one who stayed in his job.
With the Bengals riding a streak of three seasons without a playoff berth, there was speculation that changes would be made, with either coach Zac Taylor or director of player personnel Duke Tobin getting the boot. Both remained in place.
“We think they deserve another opportunity to prove that we can do what we hope we can do,” executive vice president Katie Blackburn told a small group of reporters on Monday, via Paul Dehner of The Athletic.
So is it a make or break year for Taylor and/or Tobin?
“We obviously are hoping to have a successful season this year,” Blackburn said. “I know [Taylor and Tobin] want to do that as much as I want to do that. I can’t predict anything into the future, but we’re certainly counting on, right now, having a good season and going from there.”
How good does the season have to be to avoid major changes? As Dehner notes, Taylor has two years left on his contract. The Bengals typically don’t like to pay coaches to not work.
The biggest question about Taylor’s deal is whether both years are guaranteed. His predecessor, Marvin Lewis, was fired with a year left on his contract — but the final year wasn’t guaranteed.
Whatever the reason, the Bengals didn’t yield to the temptation to try a quick fix.
“Both Zac and Duke are experienced guys with proven success and really good people,” Blackburn said. “We feel good about them for a lot of reasons. I think there’s also that element of consistency that hopefully will prove out to be beneficial, too. I think those are the things that we would rather try to take advantage of and build on rather than having to regroup and figure things out a little bit from scratch.”
Katie Blackburn was joined at the session by her daughter, Elizabeth Blackburn, who recently was given a vice president title. And one of her quotes made its way to Dehner’s story.
“We are trying to take very measured steps to maximize our chances with known commodities,” Elizabeth Blackburn said. “We think we’ve made changes in certain processes, on the roster, behind the scenes, certain things that can lead to different outcomes. That’s hard sometimes to totally see. But certain change comes with big risk. And we think we’re in a good spot.”
We’ll see if that good spot leads to a fast start. They’ve traditionally struggled early in the year. This season, it’s imperative to come out of the gates with as many wins as possible.
If they miss the playoffs again, and if Taylor’s salary isn’t guaranteed for 2027, there will be at least one coaching change in the AFC North after the season ends.
The Cincinnati Enquirer recently reported that the team and the Cincinnati Regional Sports Commission were engaged in talks with the NFL about the 2029 draft. Bengals executive vice president Katie Blackburn confirmed the team’s interest in an interview with select local beat writers on Monday.
“We’ve expressed interest, as have many other cities,” Blackburn said, via Kelsey Conway of The Enquirer. “We are exploring it and seeing whether we can have an opportunity to do that. We would love it if we could. We would be excited about it. We’ll continue to work on it to see if it can happen.”
There is no timeline for a decision.
The 2027 NFL draft will be held in D.C., and the league recently awarded the 2028 NFL draft to Minneapolis.
The NFL left New York after the 2014 draft, and since then, Chicago (twice), Philadelphia, Arlington, Nashville, Cleveland, Las Vegas, Kansas City, Detroit, Green Bay and Pittsburgh have hosted the draft. The 2020 draft was virtual.
The new Patrick Mahomes contract covers eight seasons and averages, from signing, a payout of $63.093 million per year. That pushes the market to unprecedented heights. And it brings into focus the next wave of quarterback deals.
So let’s take a look at the quarterbacks who’ll use the Mahomes contract as a key data point for ongoing or upcoming negotiations.
Lamar Jackson, Ravens.
Jackson has wanted a new deal for more than a year. His current contract averaged $52.5 million per year from signing. At the time it was finalized, he was the highest paid player in the league. He has now slid down to the bottom of the top 10. Mahomes getting to $63.09 million, especially while still recovering from a torn ACL, will only strengthen Lamar’s resolve.
Jackson currently has $104 million remaining on his current contract, over the next two years. With a no-tag clause, he can kick the can through the next two seasons and become an unrestricted free agent. It gives him significant leverage, and Mahomes’s contract likely nudges Lamar’s reasonable expectations from at least $60.1 million per year (based on Dak Prescott’s latest deal) to at least $63.1 million annually.
Joe Burrow, Bengals.
In 2023, after his first three NFL seasons, Burrow agreed to a seven-year deal with an average from signing of $44.28 million per year and a new-money average of $55 million. He has four years left with a total payout of $163.539 million, an average of $40.88 million.
His recent restructuring was a cap-creation device, with no new money. The Bengals, who are extremely careful with money, may not be inclined to tear up the current deal and replace it with a new contract.
For his part, Burrow may not be inclined to extend his commitment to the team. His discontent after three straight non-playoff seasons has become more obvious. As he enters his seventh season in Cincinnati, Burrow could be thinking about reaching the same conclusion Carson Palmer did after his eighth.
Baker Mayfield, Buccaneers.
He has said talks on a deal that would extend his $33.3 million per year contract are nowhere close to where he thought they’d be. The Buccaneers could tag him in 2027, or they could let him hit the open market.
Some think the Bucs wouldn’t use the franchise tag; with a 2026 cap number of $39.975 million, Mayfield’s 2027 franchise tender would be at least $47.97 million. There’s a sense in some circles that the Bucs believe they’ll ultimately offer him more than anyone would in free agency, if a new deal isn’t done before Mayfield’s self-imposed deadline of the start of training camp.
C.J. Stroud.
The Texans repeatedly have proclaimed that he’s their guy. But they have yet to do for him what they’d done for cornerback Derek Stingley Jr. and defensive end Will Anderson — sign the first-round pick to a new deal before his fourth season.
The challenge at this point comes from putting a number on his second contract. There’s a broad range when it comes to veteran quarterback pay. Where would Stroud fit?
Currently, the number would be lower than it could be for Stroud, if he has a strong fourth season. Since the Texans realize that, at this point, they’d be only bidding against themselves, there’s no reason to rush the process.
Caleb Williams, Bears.
The first overall pick in the 2024 draft becomes eligible for a new deal after the 2026 regular season. And Williams has been very focused on the business realities of the NFL, from even before he was drafted.
When the time comes for Williams to get a new deal, the Mahomes number will drive the discussion. Especially if Williams continues to be on a trajectory that could put him among the top four or five quarterbacks in football.
We’ve already heard talk of Williams having expectations that would be more than eye-popping. And we also expect that Williams will make it known that he wants his contract not after the 2026 postseason ends, but promptly upon the opening of the window for a new deal after the Bears face the Vikings in Week 18.
Why carry the injury risk into the 2026 postseason? No quarterback on his rookie deal has tried to do that, even though the CBA wrinkle has been hiding in plain sight since 2011.
Jayden Daniels, Commanders.
Like Williams, Daniels becomes eligible for a new deal after the 2026 regular season. His main goal should be to reestablish himself after a disappointing and injury-plagued second season, during which he played only seven of 17 games.
If Daniels returns to his rookie form, he’ll be joining Williams as a quarterback looking for a second contract.
Drake Maye, Patriots.
The player who finished second in the MVP voting to cap his second season also has his window open after the 2026 regular season. And the Patriots will be hoping that, like Tom Brady before him, Maye will be less inclined to break the bank and more inclined to ensure that there will be cap space to have a quality team around him.
Brady, who entered the league as the 199th overall pick, had naturally lower expectations early in his career. Maye, the third overall pick who was denied the commensurate reward due to the rookie wage scale, may not be as charitable as Brady was.
Bo Nix, Broncos.
Nix’s window likewise opens after the 2026 regular season. He’ll need to show he has fully recovered from the foot injury suffered late in the AFC playoff win over the Bills. And he’ll need to do even more in Sean Payton’s offense to unlock a major deal.
Regardless, there’s a new high bar — and his contemporaries from the 2024 draft could add more data points.
That raises another question, as to Williams, Daniels, Maye, and Nix. Who goes first? There will be a competition among the agents to emerge with the best deal. This could prompt some of them to wait until the others jump in the pool first.
Sam Darnold, Seahawks.
Darnold’s three-year, $100.5 million contract from 2025 was structured to give the Seahawks an escape hatch after one year. It wasn’t structured to force the team back to the table if Darnold leads the team to a Super Bowl win.
With $27.5 million in base pay and up to $5 million in available incentives, Darnold would be justified to seek a new deal. The Seahawks may want to wait until 2027.
Regardless, Mahomes’s new contract will be a factor, whenever it’s time to sit down and work out a new contract.
The Bengals have signed all of their 2026 draft picks.
Defensive end Cashius Howell was the last member of the class to put pen to paper and the team announced their agreement with the second-round pick on Tuesday. Howell signed a four-year deal with the team.
The Bengals made Howell the 41st overall pick after he recorded 11.5 sacks at Texas A&M last season. Howell also had 9.5 sacks for Bowling Green during the 2023 season and he transferred to play for the Aggies for his final two years in college.
Howell was one of many defensive additions that the Bengals made this offseason and they’ll be hoping his pass rushing abilities helps fill the void that opened when Trey Hendrickson left as a free agent in March.
The Bengals have made a procedural move to gain some more cap space.
According to a joint report from ESPN and NFL Network, Cincinnati has restructured quarterback Joe Burrow’s contract.
The move will create $10 million in cap space for the club.
As noted by Paul Dehner Jr. of TheAthletic.com, the Bengals did this to help pay for defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence, who was acquired earlier this offseason. Cincinnati thought it could do what it wanted without restructuring Burrow’s deal, but the Lawrence deal made the Bengals want to free up some breathing room.
Burrow, who turns 30 in December, is currently under contract with the Bengals through 2029.
Playing eight games last year, Burrow completed 66.8 percent of his passes for 1,809 yards with 17 touchdowns and five interceptions.
The Browns added a little extra protection for themselves to complete the Myles Garrett trade to the Rams this week.
While Cleveland received edge rusher Jared Verse, a 2027 first-round pick, a 2028 second-round pick, and a 2029 third-round pick from Los Angeles in exchange for Garrett, the league’s daily transaction wire noted that the final pick was conditional.
According to Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com, the condition on that 2029 third-round pick is that it will become a first-round pick in the event that the Rams trade Garrett to a team in the AFC North.
It doesn’t seem likely that the Rams would even want to trade Garrett at any point in the future.
But just in case they do, the Browns have at least made it unlikely that they’ll ever see Garrett twice a year on the opposing sideline.
Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow called this year’s roster the most talented one he’s been a part of in the NFL and the offseason moves on the defensive side of the ball are the biggest reason to feel that way.
The Bengals traded for defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence after signing defensive tackle Jonathan Allen, edge rusher Boye Mafe, and safety Bryan Cook in free agency and before drafting two more defenders with their first two picks in the draft. Those moves addressed a major shortcoming for the Bengals in recent seasons and wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase said on Tuesday that everyone is looking for immediate results from the new arrivals.
“At the end of the day, we got to the Super Bowl in ’21 and never went back,” Chase said, via Ben Baby of ESPN.com. “So, expectations have always been high since 2021. But now that we have improved our defense a little more, the expectations have gone up for the defense to show us what they could do.”
The defense hasn’t been the only rough spot for the Bengals during their current playoff drought, but it’s been the most glaring one and that needs to change for the Bengals to get where they want to go in 2026.
