Bengals rookie edge rusher Cashius Howell hasn’t even settled into the NFL yet, but his new teammates are already talking about him like a player who shouldn’t have made it to them in the second round.
Howell, a second-round pick in this year’s draft, said the jump from Bowling Green to Texas A&M was actually the tougher climb. In his view, getting from the MAC to the SEC was more demanding than the leap from college to the pros.
“Not like the NFL is easy or anything - this is the best people in the world - but I feel like it was more of a struggle trying to get from the MAC to the SEC than it was the SEC to the NFL, if that makes sense,” Howell said, via Ben Baby of ESPN.
Bengals right tackle Amarius Mims made it clear he was shocked Howell was still available when Cincinnati was on the clock in the second round. Mims said the rookie has already shown enough to make him think the Bengals landed a major piece.
“I don’t know how he fell to us in the second round,” Mims said. “I don’t know how that was possible.
But I’m very glad he’s on our team. He’s going to be a great, great addition for us.”
That confidence is not coming out of nowhere. Shemar Stewart, who played alongside Howell at Texas A&M in 2024, remembered Howell as a player who was constantly winning his battles in college.
“I just remember him dogging people out, doing people in,” Stewart said. “That’s the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to Cash.”
Elsewhere in the AFC North, Browns beat reporter Mary Kay Cabot revisited the split between Cleveland and Baker Mayfield ahead of their Week 2 matchup, and she pointed to a strained relationship between Mayfield and then-head coach Kevin Stefanski late in 2021.
Cabot said the two were not seeing eye to eye “at all” by the end of that season, and she said Mayfield called out Stefanski after a game against the Steelers for letting him absorb so many sacks. According to Cabot, Mayfield was prepared to either request a trade or demand “significant changes.”
Cabot also said things were “not good” between Mayfield and Myles Garrett at the time. She noted that Garrett did not reply to Mayfield’s farewell text after the quarterback was traded.
In Other News...
Bengals Face Two Immediate Week 2 Questions Fans Can't Ignore
Joe Burrows back tightness has become the most immediate health storyline for Cincinnati as the Bengals turn the page to Week 2 against the Texans. Burrow is expected to play, which matters plenty for a team that needs its offense in rhythm early, but it also puts the spotlight on how he feels going into another division-sized test and how the Bengals manage the week around a quarterback who is never far from the center of the conversation.
There is also a quieter development worth watching on the defensive side, where rookie end Cashius Howell is just getting started after being a recent second-round pick. Teammate Shemar Stewart has already pointed him toward the grind ahead, which is the kind of advice that usually lands differently once the games start to pile up and the leagues physical demands become impossible to ignore. [Read more 🡒]
Bengals Ownership Is Sending A Clear Message About This Franchise
For all the noise around roster building and contract strategy, the Bengals financial picture says plenty about how this franchise sees itself now. Forbes recently ranked the Brown family 224th on its list of the 400 richest people in America, putting their net worth at $7.6 billion, while Elizabeth Blackburn has helped push the teams brand forward and broaden the use of Paycor Stadium as part of a more modern, visible operation around the club.
The bigger shift is how much the organization has grown since introducing its Ring of Honor in 2021, with the franchises value rising by roughly $5.325 billion in that span. Joe Burrows arrival as the face of the team has clearly affected spending and strategy, and the message from ownership has been hard to miss: the Bengals are acting like a franchise that expects to stay in the conversation, not merely visit it. [Read more 🡒]
Bengals Already Feel Better About One Big Free Agency Bet
The Bengals got exactly the kind of early return they hoped for when Boye Mafe arrived from Seattle in free agency. In Cincinnatis 33-27 win over the Buccaneers in the 2026 season opener, the defensive end made his presence felt all over the field, logging a sack, forcing a fumble and recovering one in a performance that quickly justified the organizations investment.
Mafes debut also came with the sort of pressure the Bengals were counting on him to handle, and he answered it with a disruptive night that showed why he was viewed as such an important addition to the defensive line. PFF was high on the outing too, adding another layer to a strong first impression, but the bigger question now is whether this was the start of a trend or just an opening flash. [Read more 🡒]