Williams: Cincinnati Bengals plan to overhaul defense? Lose a lot, receive top draft pick

Subject: Cincinnati Bengals whiff on big opportunity at NFL trade deadline

Message: I’m a lifelong Bengals fan, so I understand how they operate. Yet I was really hoping they’d be active at the trade deadline. The Flacco trade (last month) got my hopes up, thinking the Bengals were committed to doing everything possible to fix things now and salvage the season. Alas, disappointed again.

Reply: Yeah, there was an optical illusion created by some of the daily beat reporters and social-media superfans around the idea that the Bengals would be really active at the trade deadline for once. They made a minor move by trading linebacker Logan Wilson in exchange for a seventh-round draft pick. It was merely a salary dump.

If ever there was a deadline to go all in, this was it. Typically, the NFL trade deadline is pretty dead. But this one had the feel of baseball’s trade deadline, with teams looking to either unload players for a rebuild or go all in on trying to win a championship.

The Bengals should’ve done one or the other to try to fix their defense. They did neither, sticking with a long-held tradition of mostly sitting on their hands at the trade deadline. The logical approach would’ve been to teardown the defense by trading as many players as possible and, in exchange, stockpile future draft picks.

However, the Bengals’ track record of drafting even competent defensive players has been terrible in recent years. So the argument could be made that the better approach might’ve been for the Bengals to give up premium future draft picks in exchange for proven defensive players such cornerback Sauce Gardner and defensive tackle Quinnen Williams. The New York Jets, in teardown mode, traded former Cincinnati Bearcats star Gardner to Indianapolis and Williams to Dallas.

Look, it’s easy to Monday-morning quarterback the trade deadline. There are no guarantees the Bengals would’ve gotten top players, but they should’ve tried to compete for those guys at the deadline. Getting proven players via trade would’ve been the quickest way to fix what’s shaping up to be one of the worst defenses in NFL history and give the Bengals a shot to make the playoffs again in 2026 once quarterback Joe Burrow is presumably back fully healthy.

Instead, the Bengals signaled they’re going to rely on a handful of young defensive players and future draft picks to try to turn things around. Good luck with that. The front office made a decision after the Super Bowl run to spend boatloads of money on the offense and build the defense through the draft.

The Bengals’ inactivity at the trade deadline simply showed they’re doubling down on that plan. It’s not about being patient. It’s about being cheap and stubborn. The only chance this plan has of succeeding is if the Bengals suffer through some rough seasons and finish among the worst teams in the NFL. Then they’d get rewarded with top-5 or top-10 draft picks.

They are trending toward that this season. The Bengals could be gifted a top defensive player in the 2026 draft such as Ohio State safety Caleb Downs or Miami Hurricanes edge rusher Reuben Bain Jr. (or another marquee defensive end like Clemson’s Peter Woods or Auburn’s Keldric Faulk).

Hey, this is the approach the Bengals originally took to building their offense. Terrible finishes in 2019 and 2020 gifted them top-5 draft picks, which ultimately produced Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase.

But this is an it’ll-get-worse-before-it-gets-better approach. The Bengals have to do a lot of losing. Are they really willing to risk wasting more of Burrow’s prime in order to build their defense? Apparently so.

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