Dec 22, 2024; Cincinnati, Ohio, USA; Cincinnati Bengals defensive tackle Kris Jenkins Jr. (90) celebrates a sack during the first quarter against the Cleveland Browns at Paycor Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Joseph Maiorana-Imagn Images Joseph Maiorana-Imagn Images

Cincinnati Bengals 2026 Youth Checkup: Kris Jenkins

Originally posted on Cincinnati Bengals on SI
By Russell Heltman | Last updated Feb 15, 2026 5:03 PM ET

The Bengals Youth Checkup Reports roll forward this week, featuring 2024 second-round defensive tackle Kris Jenkins.

Cincinnati selected the Michigan product with hopes he could plug up their leaky rushing issues up the middle, and while that hasn't necessarily come to fruition, Jenkins is flashing some good signs.

He currently holds a six overall weighted Approximate Value on Pro Football Reference, which ranks second in the Bengals 2024 class behind Amarius Mims (16).

Let's see how the bruiser is doing 29 games into his NFL career.

Sam Greene/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Checkup Report

Starting with the positives, Jenkins showed improvement from his rookie year to Year Two. He ended that first campaign with a 45.4 Pro Football Focus grade and boosted things up to 53.3 overall in 2025. He finished with 36 tackles, 1.5 sacks, and three QB hits this past season.

Cincinnati played him nearly the same amount of snaps as he played in his rookie year, but Jenkins did miss the final three games of the season due to injury (498 snaps in the 2025 season, 496 in the 2024 season), so he would've blasted through that rookie mark if healthy.

A largely interior player, Jenkins played nearly every snap in 2025 on the interior, logging 378 snaps as a defensive tackle, 21 as a nose tackle, and 11 as a defensive end.

He posted six more stops this season (18) compared to last (12), while missing just one more tackle in 2025. He played a good chunk more pass-rush snaps this past season compared to his rookie year and was more effective (18 QB pressures to 11 in 2024).

Now, all of this is an improvement in a vacuum from 2024, but Jenkins was still not close to the level Bengals fans are hoping to see from him. That 53.3 overall grade ranked 65th among 90 defensive tackles that played at least 450 snaps last season.

Tackling has been an issue for Jenkins, just like other parts of the Bengals defense (sub-46 PFF tackling grades in both seasons). He ranked 44th among qualified tackles with a 12.8% missed tackle rate this season and 89th in pass-rush grade (50 overall).

That's the biggest area needing improvement for the 6-3, 305-pound talent. He gets stalled out far too often when pursuing the passer, and Cincinnati hasn't mustered enough interior pressure because of it. Jenkins posted those 1.5 sacks in the Minnesota blowout loss and had just four games the rest of the season with multiple pressures.

The 24-year-old can still keep growing despite those peer rankings, as he did from Year One to Year Two. Second-year Bengals defensive line coach Jerry Montgomery elevated Jenkins play once last year, and there's little reason to believe it won't happen again, given his combined work ethic with Jenkins'.

"It begins with technique and fundamentals," Montgomery said to Bengals.com last week about his t They began to figure it out," Montgomery says. "I think from the bye week on, those guys were so locked into those things that it slowed the game down for them. We've just got to keep bringing everybody along."

Jenkins has to clamp down on his tackle chances and get more disruptive as a pass rusher to fully confirm this as a hit pick.

Check out our first Youth Checkup on Amarius Mims here.