The Bengals moved 2022 first-round pick Dax Hill into a starting safety spot for the 2023 season and he remained there for all 17 games, but their offseason moves suggest that won’t be the case this season.
Geno Stone and Vonn Bell signed with the team as free agents and their arrival will likely push Hill into a new role. It could be a similar one to the nickel corner spot he filled for much of his time at Michigan or it could see him move between a number of spots with the results of the draft likely weighing on the ultimate direction things go.
Hill said from the team’s offseason program this week that he feels “everything is up in the air” at the moment, but that he’ll be ready to go for anything the Bengals have in mind.
“It helps to have clarity, but that’s what training camp and things like that are for, OTAs,” Hill said, via WKRC. “It’s kind of right now really just setting the blueprint for what’s to come. Whatever position I’ll be in I will give it my all.”
Hill had 110 tackles, 1.5 sacks, two interceptions, and 11 passes defensed during the 2023 season.
As a rookie last season, Bengals running back Chase Brown was a backup to Joe Mixon and finished the season with just 44 carries for 179 yards and no touchdowns. With Mixon now in Houston, Brown expects a bigger workload in 2024 -- and he has spent the offseason getting his body ready.
Brown, who is competing with Zack Moss to be the Bengals’ starting running back, said he is investing in himself by hiring professionals to help him take care of his body.
“I have a lot of people now around me to help keep my body in shape,” Brown said, via Bengals.com. “I learned so much from last season and I’m taking that knowledge and doubling it in year two. I’m going to have a trainer with me and have a physical therapist and masseur come over to my house a few times a week. It’s investing in the craft, investing in my body. I think that’s where people are wrong, a little bit [in the offseason]. They focus a little too much on the extracurriculars, travel, all that.”
Brown showed in college that he could handle a very big workload, carrying 328 times for 1,643 yards during his senior season at Illinois. It’s probably safe to say he won’t get that big a workload in Cincinnati this season, but he’ll be ready for everything the Bengals give him.
One of the top offensive line prospects in this year’s draft class is wrapping up his pre-draft visits in the AFC East.
Adam Schefter of ESPN reports that former Washington tackle Troy Fautanu is visiting the Jets on Wednesday. The team has also visited with former Alabama tackle JC Latham this week.
The report notes that Fautanu has also met with the Bengals, Ravens, Jaguars, Steelers and Eagles during the pre-draft process. The Jets have the highest first-round pick of those teams at No. 10.
Fautanu started at left tackle for the Huskies over the last two seasons and Washington won the Joe Moore Award for the nation’s top offensive line for the 2023 season.
Bayron Matos grew up in the Dominican Republic and has never played a single game of football in his life, but he might just get drafted next week.
Matos, who moved to the United States at age 16 to pursue a basketball career and played hoops at South Florida, participated in the NFL’s International Player Pathway program this year and impressed NFL teams enough that there’s talk he could be drafted.
Unlike most participants in the International Player Pathway program, Matos is draft-eligible because he went to college and is four years out of high school. The Bengals are interested enough to use one of their 30 pre-draft visits on Matos, and he’s in Cincinnati today, according to Tom Pelissero of NFL Network.
Matos is 6-foot-7 and 313 pounds and is viewed as an offensive line project. He does have some football experience, having practiced with the South Florida football team, and former NFL personnel man Scott Pioli, who consults with the International Player Pathway program, is on the record as saying that Matos could be a Day 3 draft pick.
Jordan Mailata went from the International Player Pathway program to the seventh round of the 2018 NFL draft to his current status as Philadelphia’s starting left tackle. The Eagles are very glad they took a chance on a raw prospect. The team that drafts Matos may feel the same way a few years from now.
Bengals receiver Tee Higgins recently said he expects to be in Cincinnati this year. His comment likely means two things.
First, and most obviously, he won’t be traded. Second, and perhaps less likely, he won’t be signing a long-term deal that pays him at the level he desires.
The lack of a trade isn’t a surprise. After word got out that he asked for a trade, the Bengals didn’t get an overwhelming amount of interest. Even then, the Bengals have a tendency to be very determined in their positions — as evidenced by, for example, their reluctance to trade quarterback Carson Palmer (until the Raiders made an overwhelming offer) and their refusal to even entertain the possibility of trading the first pick in the 2020 draft to the Dolphins.
When it comes to the tag, the Bengals have a history of keeping the tagged player for one year and then letting him go. (The only franchise-tagged player they signed to a long-term deal, Carl Pickens, was cut after one year of it.)
Given that Higgins is due to make $21.8 million this year, that’s not a bad deal. While it’s not the kind of generational payday that a great player will realize with a long-term deal, the $21.8 million compares favorably to the real numbers for the high-end receivers.
Absent a long-term deal, Higgins will make great money for a year and then become a free agent. Even if the Bengals tag him again, he’ll make at least $26.16 million in 2025.
A long-term deal would need to pay Higgins at least $48 million over the first two years, fully guaranteed, to justify acceptance. With receiver Ja’Marr Chase also in line for a new deal, it will be hard for the Bengals to give major contracts to both players.
So it likely will be a major salary for Higgins in 2024, and a likely ticket to the open market in 2025. And he seems to be fine with that.
Here’s one more reason for Higgins to be fine with it. As the first player taken in round two of the 2020 draft, he wasn’t subject to the fifth-year option. And his franchise tender of $21.8 million exceeds the fifth-year options of the 2020 first-round receivers who have not yet gotten long-term deals: CeeDee Lamb ($17.99 million); Justin Jefferson ($19.75 million); and Brandon Aiyuk ($14.1 million).