Tee Higgins didn’t need long to identify the Bengals defender who’s been giving him the most work this camp.
After Sunday’s long, physical practice, Higgins made it clear that DJ Ivey has been more than a body on the other side of the ball. The wideout said the corner has pushed him through several recent sessions while Dax Hill has been out with leg tightness, and that challenge showed up again on Higgins’ touchdown catch from Joe Burrow.
“He’s gotten me better,” Higgins said. “He’s really pushed me.”
“It feels good,” he said. “I mean, I’ve been battling him for the last few practices.
And that’s gotten me better. So it feels good to hear that from a top five receiver in the league.”
For Ivey, the rep was a familiar one: Burrow putting the ball where only Higgins could go get it. Higgins high-pointed the catch, and Ivey came away looking like a defender who knew the play was tilted against him.
Burrow and Higgins have been making those kinds of plays together for seven seasons, and Ivey has been left trying to solve a problem that’s hard to solve. He has six career pass defenses on just 195 snaps, and after that touchdown he didn’t sugarcoat what he saw.
“I knew it was a high possibility that he was gonna get the ball,” he said of Higgins. “I thought he was gonna do a stutter go, or maybe just a fade. I knew it was coming to him.
“It’s hard to tell what I could have done differently,” Ivey said. ““Obviously Tee’s a big target and Joe is putting the ball in a spot where only Tee could make the play,” Ivey added.
“He’s one of the best five receivers in the league. I just have to try to make the play.”
Even with that kind of assignment, Ivey’s summer has only strengthened his case. The Bengals are treating him like a player who belongs, and defensive coordinator Al Golden said it plainly.
“DJ Ivey is as consistent as ever,” Golden said.
That consistency is tied to the same edge Ivey has carried since entering the league as the 246th pick in the 2023 draft. Four seasons into his career, he still plays like a man trying to climb out from the bottom.
“Every camp I go into, I, go in as if I'm at the bottom of the barrel and just got to work my way up,” he said. “All my life I've, I've been working.
So there's no difference in what I'm doing here. I’ve just got to keep putting in the work to stay here.
The defensive work has come on top of a heavy load on special teams, where Ivey has already established himself for coordinator Darrin Simmons. The Bengals haven’t backed off his special teams role even as his defensive reps have increased, and the workload has shown.
Ivey logged 273 special teams snaps in 2025, third most on the team behind Oren Burks (385) and Tycen Anderson (382). With Anderson now gone after signing with the Broncos this offseason, Ivey could be in line for even more work in that phase.
“It’s been tiring at times in camp, but in the end it’ll be good,” Ivey said. “No, in the end it will be great.
So I can’t think about it in the moment. Just have to keep working.
“I want to be the best gunner in the league,” he added. “I want to make the Pro Bowl and be a special teams leader for us.”
The Bengals’ first depth chart of the season on Sunday listed Ivey as the backup nickel corner to Jalen Davis, though he hasn’t taken many of those reps in camp. Most of that work has gone to Davis, Ja’Sir Taylor and Bralyn Lux.
Still, Ivey is clearly carving out a bigger footprint. He looks like the first outside corner off the bench, and the Bengals also see him as a player who can handle tight ends.
Whatever the exact role ends up being, one thing looks settled: Ivey has a place in 2026. The only real question is how large that place will be.
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