2019 IDP Projections: Cincinnati Bengals

As per last year, Tom Kislingbury will be sharing projections for every team in the NFL. He uses past production in specific roles for each team’s scheme to work out realistic production profiles. You can see how accurate he was in 2018 in his IDP Projection Marking series. Today’s article is written by Ryan Early.

In February, the Bengals replaced long-time defensive-minded coach Marvin Lewis with Zac Taylor, the Rams’ 2018 quarterback coach. Bengals owner Mike Brown has a well-deserved reputation of being excessively thrifty, and when the weeks went by without Taylor finding a defensive coordinator, the thoughts were equally about no one wanting to take orders from a 35-year-old who’d never been a coordinator to no one being willing to take whatever contract Brown was offering.

After almost three weeks (an eternity in the coaching change calendar), former Giants and Dolphins defensive backs coach Lou Anarumo took the gig.

The Bengals defensive personnel stayed surprisingly the same from last season, though there is still some mystery as to how Anarumo’s scheme will differ from Lewis’s. Camp observers have seen some interesting looks being practiced, including a five-big-man front, and a third-and-long set with the three defensive ends joining Geno Atkins to maximize the pass rush. That’s welcome news, as something needs to happen to improve a squad that ranked near the league bottom in just about every defensive category last year.

Defensive tackle

Atkins put up 10 sacks and 45 combined tackles last year, but he is now on the wrong side of 30. The Bengals have at least one more season in which to rely heavily on him, based on his contract alone. Andrew Billings is purely a run stuffer and will come off the field in passing situations. Ryan Glasgow will spell Billings and get extra snaps on short-yardage plays. But it’s likely an end will be kicked inside in place of a tackle in passing situations.

Defensive end

Carlos Dunlap also hit the magic 3-0 in age, and put up almost identical stats last season to Atkins, albeit with a couple more quarterback hits and a couple fewer QB tackles when they still had the ball.

The Bengals are excited about their two young pass rushers on the line. Sam Hubbard had 6 sacks last year on very few pressures. That is normally an indicator of a negative regression the following year but players also typically make their biggest improvement between their first and all off-season reports indicate this is true for Hubbard.

There is a pretty good possibility that Carl Lawson ends this season as clearly the team’s best pass rusher. He had 8.5 sacks as a rookie in 2017, and was generating a lot of pressures in his first few games last season before going down with a non-contact injury. The Bengals have been cautious in easing him back in this off-season, but once he is fully fit and not thinking about the injury, he will be the lineman to own in dynasty leagues. The question is how soon that occurs.

Inside linebacker

Vontaze Burfict, the linebacker everyone loves to hate, is now in Oakland. Preston Brown, Jordan Evans, and Nick Vigil are the returning veterans. All three missed significant time to injury last year, and failed to impress even when they were healthy. The top player to own is Brown, who dropped weight in the off-season, training with the ageless Bills LB Lorenzo Alexander, and came into camp at a much leaner 240 pounds. But was that the right move for a player with his injury history?

The Bengals drafted Germaine Pratt in the third round. Marvin Lewis almost never played rookies, but that regime is gone, and the new coaches are going to give Pratt every opportunity to play his way onto the field.

Hardy Nickerson is still trying to follow in his famous father’s footsteps, but looked dreadful when pressed into action last year. Malik Jefferson looks like a wasted third-round pick after but one season.

Cornerback

The Bengals’ top three corners from 2018 all return and look to fill the exact same rolls but cornerback is a highly volatile position year-to-year. William Jackson is the best of the three in skill level, totaling 13 passes defensed last year.

Drew Kirkpatrick is entering his age-30 season, but has only missed eight games in the last six seasons. Darqueze Denard racked up the tackle numbers last year, by allowing most three-quarters of his targets to be caught first before tackling them to the ground. B.W. Webb had over a thousand snaps for the Giants last year, but that team made upgrading the position a priority and let him walk as a free agent.

Safety

Jessie Bates was a surprise fantasy stud last season as a rookie with 111 combined tackles. Not only was it rare for coach Marvin Lewis to play a rookie, but it was almost as unheard of to have a safety put up good stat totals in their system, which used left and right deep safeties rather than the strong/free alignment. Do not expect lightning to strike twice. The reason why Bates got big tackles is that Shawn Williams did as well, with 112 combined tackles, and with more big plays as well. With a bad linebacking corps, and ok to mediocre corners, there were a lot of tackles to be had downfield. These numbers should come down with regression to the mean alone.

Clayton Fejdelem had some highlight-reel plays when on the field, but he should only see significant playing time because of injury.

Stud – Geno Atkins, DT

Atkins led the team in sacks, and is almost certain to do it again in 2019. Plug him in as your starter in DT-premium leagues for one last top season.

Disappointment – Jessie Bates, S

Bates was one of the most unexpected top IDP safeties last season, mostly thanks to being the last line of defense on a really bad team. But not only is there likely positive regression just from having not so many defensive players injured, but a coaching change and potential scheme change adds further risk of statistical variance.

Darkhorse – Carl Lawson, DE / Germaine Pratt, LB

During minicamps, it was Sam Hubbard who got all the buzz as Lawson was not even practicing. That changed at the tail end of training camp, with Lawson putting on the pads and attracting immediate attention from the offensive linemen, and quarterbacks. If he’s playing at full strength by week one, then he’ll have higher snap totals than printed in the above position projections.

Similarly, rookie linebacker Germain Pratt showed in minicamps he had a lot to learn and was cemented in the second string at the start of training camp. How long he stays there is the question, not only because of his potential but also the injury histories of the first-stringers.

Summary

The Bengals were a bad defense that failed to make many (any?) major personnel changes in the off-season. Rather, they are hoping that getting their players healthy, and a fresh set of coaches, can create immediate improvement. While that is very much in doubt, there are several players to target and play in IDP leagues, though you may have to be patient on a couple.