Cincinnati Bengals Rookie Has Big Opportunity on Sunday vs New York Jets

CINCINNATI ---- The Bengals have a chance to get back to .500 on Sunday with a win over the winless New York Jets. This is a game the Bengals should win, but it won't be easy.

Even without Garrett Wilson, who is expected to be inactive with a knee injury, the Jets have a playmaker on offense who is capable of making things very uncomfortable for the Bengals if given the chance.


Breece Hall has been a casualty of an extremely inept Jets offense so far this season, failing to find the endzone at all this season after seven weeks. That being said, Hall has shown glimpses of life even within New York's offense by making solid plays in the receiving game, along with two other 100-yard rushing performances this season.


Those 100-yard games came against the Cowboys and Steelers, both of which have shown to be leaky defenses at best this year, and something that unfortunately, the Bengals have known all too much about this season as they have surrendered 137.3 yards per game to opposing offenses.


A large reason for that number being so high is missed tackles from the Bengals young linebackers, namely rookie Demetrius Knight Jr., who has a 17.9% missed tackle percentage.


Knight has shown flashes of solid play, which in and of itself is impressive considering he was expected to be a day one from the moment he was drafted in the second round this year. What has not helped Knight is his failure to bring down ball carriers, something that is shown by his 36.6 tackling grade and 42.7 overall grade according to Pro Football Focus.


The bright side of his struggles with tackling is that it appears to be more technical than anything, something that should be fixable fairly quickly in his young career. Knight has not exactly had the most consistent help around him at linebacker either after Zac Taylor opted to bench longtime starting linebacker Logan Wilson for fellow rookie linebacker Barrett Carter. This change not only took away Wilson as a veteran presence next to night, but also removed Wilson as the green dot communicator on defense who is often considered "the quarterback of the defense".


Factor in all of this, and it almost begins to feel as though everything was stacked against Knight for his rookie season. Sunday feels like it could be a chance for Knight to build some important momentum going forward, though, as he and the rest of the defense will be facing a Jets offense that, as said above, has struggled to find any sort of rhythm this season.


These kinds of games against struggling opponents can obviously never be looked passed (see the Bengals' 2021 loss to the Mike White led Jets). But they present a huge opportunity for young players like Knight to finally begin to show their upside in the NFL. He will be tasked with keeping Hall in check.

Jets quarterback Justin Fields is also an elite runner and will start on Sunday.

The Bengals should win on Sunday, and one of the bigger stories to track during the game is Knight's progression in how he sees the feels, as well as if he can clean up the errors as a tackler to keep the Jets from finding any sort of offensive momentum.