The Bengals still need answers in the backfield, and the latest Joe Mixon twist only made the situation feel stranger. For a moment, it looked like Cincinnati’s former runner might be headed to Seattle after all, giving the Seahawks a possible boost while the Bengals keep searching for consistent production on the ground. But ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that Mixon did not, in fact, join the reigning Super Bowl champs after taking a physical.
Seattle had reasons to kick the tires. Rookie first-rounder Jadarian Price is on injured reserve, Zach Charbonnet remains out, and that left Emmanuel Wilson and George Holani in line for work.
The Seahawks also added Robert Henry Jr. from Washington’s taxi squad, a move the source notes came after an initial belief that Mixon was signing there. Mixon’s non-move ended up being the real story.
For Cincinnati, the bigger issue is still the same one that’s been hanging around: the run game is struggling, and Chase Brown isn’t offering much relief as the feature back. The source description of Brown was blunt, and it pointed to a larger problem - the Bengals are not getting enough after-contact production when they need it most.
The former Bengals who are actually making noise right now are doing it elsewhere. Akeem Davis-Gaither has settled in nicely with the Colts, where he’s reunited with former Bengals defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo. He’s credited with 37 combined tackles and has missed only one, per PFF, a strong early return for a player who’s helping a defense that still has to tackle better overall.
That’s where Cincinnati’s current linebacker situation comes back into focus. Barrett Carter and Demetrius Knight Jr. are both having their share of struggles as second-year pros, even though the front office did make upgrades on defense, especially along the defensive line. The Bengals have improved in some areas, but the tackling issues haven’t disappeared.
There’s also a former pass-rush duo dealing with different kinds of setbacks. Trey Hendrickson is out for the time being after surgery on a broken finger he suffered in the season opener and played through before finally getting time away.
He has only one sack so far. Joseph Ossai, meanwhile, signed a three-year deal worth $34.5 million with the Jets and has yet to make much of an impact, while also dealing with a foot injury from early September.
The numbers on Ossai’s first two games in New York were rough: 85 defensive snaps, 32 of them in pass rush, with 0 pressures, 0 QB hits and 0 sacks. He finished with nine tackles, two missed tackles, two run stops, one catch allowed for seven yards on one target, and grades of 49.7 overall, 52.6 as a pass rusher and 53.5 against the run.
Then there’s Geno Stone, whose post-Bengals slide has become hard to ignore. The Bills have not activated him for a single game this season, a development the source mocked heavily after Stone started for Cincinnati for two seasons. The criticism was sharp: his ball-hawking form from Baltimore never showed up in Cincinnati, and his tackling was described as worse than Jordan Battle’s.
And while the Bills’ decision to keep him off the active roster stands out, the Bengals’ own secondary still invites questions. Based on what happened in the Week 4 loss to Jacksonville, and with PJ Jules and Russ Yeast looking decent at safety while Bryan Cook and Kyle Dugger were sidelined, the source argues Cincinnati might have been better off just starting Jules from 2024 onward.
In Other News...
Cincinnati Gets An Early Ohio State Test With Real Rotation Stakes
The Bearcats are heading into an unusual early measuring stick against Ohio State, and the setting alone makes it feel different from a typical November tune-up. The game is being staged on a tennis court in Mason, Ohio, with no streaming option available beyond a radio broadcast on Cincinnatis website, so this one will mostly be tracked the old-fashioned way even as the stakes around Cincinnatis rotation start to take shape.
MJ Collins is expected to be unavailable under NCAA preseason rules, which opens the door a bit wider for Akai Fleming and David Iweze to make their case for minutes. Ohio State brings the more obvious size edge into the matchup, and the Buckeyes also have a proven piece back in John Mobley Jr., making this a useful early snapshot of where Cincinnati stands when the competition starts to look more like the real thing. [Read more 🡒]
Bearcats Showed Promise Against Ohio State But One Concern Stood Out
The Bearcats opened the 2026 CareSource Invitational with a win that should travel well on the rsum, knocking off Ohio State 79-68 in a game that asked plenty of them early and rewarded them late. Cincinnati settled in after a sloppy start and used a strong second half to take control, with Jayden Hastings and Tyler Tejada helping steady things as the Buckeyes struggled to keep pace.
Still, the performance came with a blemish that stood out as much as the result. The game had the feel of an outdoor showcase at times, with sloppy stretches and poor free-throw shooting muddying what might otherwise have been a cleaner statement win for Cincinnati, and it left enough for the Bearcats to clean up even as they walked away with an encouraging victory. [Read more 🡒]