The Bengals aren’t treating Sunday like a walkover just because Tennessee shipped out one of its premier defenders.
Jeffery Simmons is gone, but Cincinnati is still approaching the Titans with caution, and that message is coming straight from inside the locker room. Center Ted Karras wasn’t interested in brushing off the matchup after the trade.
"If you let it happen, yes," Karras told Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com about trap games. "I'm out here bleeding on a Thursday to win this ballgame. We have to take a deeper look and anticipate how they'll play without him."
Guard Dalton Risner took the same line, refusing to make Simmons the whole story. He pointed to the Titans’ other defensive front pieces and made it clear Cincinnati can’t afford to fixate on one departed star.
“Jeffrey Simmons isn't the only good football player on that team,” Risner told Hobson. “They have John Franklin-Myers and Solomon Thomas, who I think are playing at a really high level.
Stackhouse has come in and played good football…I really hope it doesn't make this become about Jeffrey Simmons leaving because those other guys are good. We can't fall into that."
The Bengals are still the heavy favorite, and the numbers around the matchup haven’t changed much. Tennessee is 1-6 and in the middle of a fire sale while making major changes, with the Joe Burrow vs. Cam Ward matchup not really drawing much debate.
Still, the comments matter in a place like Cincinnati. Bengals fans know how often the term “trap game” gets attached to these spots, especially when the opponent looks overmatched or comes in with a backup quarterback.
For now, the players are saying all the right things. The next step is backing it up on Sunday.
In Other News...
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What makes this possibility appealing is the combination of production and price. Compared with the bigger-name backs who tend to dominate deadline chatter, this is the kind of move that fits a team looking for help without overcommitting long term, especially with an expiring deal in play. Nothing is confirmed yet, but the buzz is clearly pointing toward a more realistic type of upgrade if Cincinnati decides to act. [Read more 🡒]
Jessie Bates Just Reopened A Painful Bengals What-If
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Bryan Cook was brought in to help stabilize that spot, but the larger issue remains the same: the Bengals have not found a clean replacement for what Bates brought. And while the move made sense in the moment from a cap-management standpoint, it has only sharpened the sense that this was one of those franchise crossroads that can be revisited for years. [Read more 🡒]