Bengals 2025 Roster Breakdown: Tycen Anderson pursuing newfound playing time after his first healthy season

Originally posted on A to Z Sports | By John Sheeran | Last updated Aug 12, 2025 3:47 PM ET

Bengals roster breakdown is back! During the 99 days leading up to Cincinnati’s regular season opener against the Cleveland Browns, the player with the matching jersey number as days remaining will become the day’s highlighted player.

26 days remain until the Bengals’ first game of the 2025 season, taking us into the profile of No. 26 Tycen Anderson.

Tycen Anderson

Age: 26
Year: 4th
Position: Safety
College: Toledo
Previous Teams: None
Jersey Number: 26

Anderson enters his fourth season in the NFL and with the Bengals after being drafted 166th overall in the fifth round of the 2022 NFL Draft. He spent five years at Toledo where he played in 55 games (27 starts) and was a team captain as a senior.

Injuries were the story of Anderson's first two years in Cincinnati. He missed his entire rookie season with a hamstring injury, and a torn ACL took him out of the second half of the 2023 campaign. He returned for his first 17-game season in 2024, finishing first in special teams tackles (11) and second on the roster in special teams snaps (345) only behind Maema Njongmeta.

Contract Details

Anderson enters the fourth and final year of his four-year, $3,966,084 rookie contract he signed in 2022. He will make a base salary of $1,100,000 this year, which is also the total amount of cash he’ll earn. When adding on his signing bonus proration of $76,521, his salary cap hit for the year is $1,176,521.

Roster Outlook

The Bengals traded up eight spots in the 2022 draft to select Anderson with the vision of him being a special teams savant. That vision was fully realized last year, the first in which injury didn't cut his season short. Expectations are the same for him this year in that regard, but could a larger role on defense be in store as well? That's a possibility with Geno Stone nursing a hamstring injury as of this posting.

Anderson would be one of the first in-house options to start at free safety with Stone sidelined, but he's only played one career regular season snap on defense in two years. He's played 332 snaps in the preseason and that will grow even further to close this month out.

If Stone does miss some time in September, Cincinnati will have to decide if rolling the dice on Anderson (or Daijahn Anthony) is worth not signing a free agent at the position. The most likely outcome is he builds off his special teams work from last year and strengthen his resume to be re-signed in the offseason.

Projected role: Backup safety