Bengals Get Brutal OTAs Grade For One Major Reason

Few teams have such polarizing situations on the offensive and defensive sides than the Cincinnati Bengals. Offensively the Bengals can compete with any team in the league.

Defensively, however, they struggled mightily last season and their offseason operations currently have two of their most important players out of action. 

Both Trey Hendrickson and rookie Shemar Stewart are not with the team currently, standing firm on their own holdouts. Hendrickson's case is the more serious of the two with a nasty public back-and-forth between himself and the team. 

This leaves a growing level of uncertainty heading into next season with plenty of concern for Al Golden in his first year running this defense. Bleacher Report's Gary Davenport has since labeled the Bengals as one of the "losers" from OTAs. 

"The Cincinnati Bengals had one of the NFL’s most explosive offenses last year. But the team missed the playoffs, largely because of a leaky defense that ranked 25th in the NFL."

While the contract theater plays out on the side, the Bengals are still roughly where they left off last season. Joe Burrow, Ja'Marr Chase and the rest of the offense should be brilliant again though they risk a lackluster defense weighing them down. 

"The Bengals will move the ball in 2025. They will score points. But they won't go anywhere if the defense is dreadful again... And improving isn’t going to be easy if the Bengals can’t rush the passer."

The worst part? There's no visible path to a resolution either specifically in the case with Hendrickson. He is not the only player holding out in pursuit of a contract extension. 

But the frustrations from the player's side have gone more public than most disputes in recent seasons. When this happens, there are now inevitable distractions that have followed. 

The Bengals have a little over a month until training camp so there is some time to make progress on both fronts though they have their work cut out to reach any turning point.