Who Is and Who Isn’t Expected To Play for the Bengals in Preseason Finale?

Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor said Thursday that no starters will play in Saturday’s preseason finale at Washington. And if last year is any indication, there won’t be many key backups on the field, either.

Bengals Starters Won’t Play in Final Preseason Game

In the Week 3 preseason game against the Rams last year, only 41 players took at least one snap, and two of them were kicker Evan McPherson and punter Kevin Huber. Of those 41, only 16 made the 53-man roster after cutdown day, and only seven played at least one snap in the regular-season opening loss to the Steelers.

More players should see action against the Commanders than the 41 who played in the finale last year when the roster already had been trimmed to 80. The Bengals currently have 89 players on the roster, and that number will need to be trimmed to 53 by 4 p.m. Tuesday.

Some of those who play in Washington will be fighting for a spot on the 53, but most will be trying to secure one of the 16 spots on the practice squad. All of them should get at least one series to state their final case.

“You want to make sure you’ve seen everybody as you’re dealing with final roster spots and practice squad spots,” Taylor said.

Last week in Atlanta, the Bengals took the unusual preseason measure of having offensive lineman Jackson Carman play every snap on offense.

“You get better at football by playing football,” offensive line coach Frank Pollack said before declaring that Carman took a big step forward in that game.

If Carman or anyone else logs that big of a workload on Saturday, it will be due to limited bodies available at the position, not the need for an extended evaluation.

“To see a guy play a whole game — if you ever needed him to do that — we don’t have anybody in mind that’s gonna play all four quarters and get every rep for that reason,” Taylor said. “It’s more so that we’re gonna get good work with some guys that still need it. And then give some opportunity to some guys that maybe haven’t had a lot of opportunity.”

The offensive line, with the five starters sitting and Cody Ford still in concussion protocol, only has eight healthy players, so several of them will play quite a bit.

The same could be true at cornerback, where Sidney Jones (hamstring) hasn’t practiced for a few weeks, and rookie second-round pick DJ Turner (soreness) hasn’t practiced since the Atlanta game. Take the three starters off the table, and that leaves the Bengals with four cornerbacks in Jalen Davis, rookie seventh-round pick DJ Ivey, Allan George, and Marvell Tell III.

Ivey appears to have locked up a spot on the 53-man roster, both with his play and the lingering hamstring issue hampering Jones.

Another area where the Bengals will be extremely thin is at running back, with Chris Evans missing the last two practices and Trayveon Williams still out with the sprained ankle he suffered on Aug. 2. That leaves rookie fifth-round pick Chase Brown and undrafted college free agents Jacob Saylors and Calvin Tyler Jr.

At wide receiver, expect to see a lot more of Andrei Iosivas, even with his spot on the 53-man roster seemingly secure.

Sport Radar has preseason stats going back to 2015, and the Bengals record for most targets in a preseason during that time is 20, which Iosivas already has tied after collecting 10 in each of the first two games. And he needs five receptions to match the 14 by Trenton Irwin in 2022 and Ventell Bryant in 2019.

Asked what more he wants to see from Iosivas, Taylor said, “Consistency.”

“There’s always things that we’re working with these guys on that we want to see more of that I think the game provides a good time where the coaches aren’t on the field,” Taylor said.

“We have to make the adjustments as we go. How do the guys handle that? How do they handle new looks that maybe we haven’t practiced? Because you don’t game plan as much for these games as you would regular-season games. So it’s good to see the players react and see what they can take in. And so he’d be one of those guys you get a chance to observe that.”

One player we have yet to see but will against the Commanders is TE Mitch Wilcox, whom the team activated from the Physical Unable to Perform list on Monday after he recovered from offseason knee surgery, which he called a kick in the gut.

“We wanted to see how he got through these two days,” Taylor said. “He has looked as we had hoped in these two days. He’s feeling really good. How much work we’ll get him on Saturday, I’m not sure on that yet. He has proven to us he’s in good shape and ready to go and mentally understands what we need out of him from a scheme standpoint.”

While much of the 53-man roster appears set, Taylor said there are a lot of things that can happen during the next 72 hours that could affect decisions.

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“I think you have to afford yourself the next three days to see how it all shakes out,” he said.

“That’s one thing I’ve learned. There’s always things that can occur over the next three days that to say that decisions are set in stone is unfair and unrealistic because there’s still a lot that can unfold over these next couple of days that can affect the final roster.”

At 0-1-1, the Bengals will head to Washington trying to avoid just their third winless preseason in franchise history. They went 0-4 in 1983 and 1999.