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Meaningful Preseason Reps Can Mean A lot In Cincinnati

Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor reacts to a replay of a play in the end zone in the second quarter during a Week 16 NFL football game between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Pittsburgh Steelersl, Saturday, Dec. 23, 2023, at Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh, Pa.

Credit: Kareem Elgazzar/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK

By Alex Schubert on August 2, 2024

The NFL’s preseason serves many purposes, even if it’s terrible to watch. It gives less experienced players a chance to earn playing time and show coaches why they deserve to make the roster. It enables fans to yell obscenities at refs because they made a close call that is 1000% meaningless. It gives that one player from your local high school a chance to get way too long of a standing ovation by merely entering the game (looking at you, Drew Plitt).

It even gave both the 2008 Detroit Lions and the 2017 Cleveland Browns a glimpse of glory by going 4-0 in each preseason and by allowing the fewest points in the entire NFL in the corresponding preseasons; they followed those up with the only two 0-16 seasons in NFL history.

However, with key starters getting almost no playing time in years past under Zac Taylor, it hasn’t served much purpose for the Cincinnati Bengals. This preseason, things will be different, as we’ll see reps for a lot of their starters, including Joe Burrow. Hooray for almost meaningful games!

It’s a welcome sign for a team that has desperately needed to make sure its players are ready for the first game of the year. Over the past couple seasons, starters have been fully rested in the preseason. While Joe Burrow’s 2023 calf injury and 2022 appendectomy likely both played a role in those decisions, resting the majority of starters could have been a culprit in slow starts in each of the last two seasons.

In 2022, the Bengals had rested their starters in the preseason. With a completely new look offensive line in Week 1 against the Pittsburgh Steelers, the offense looked disjointed. Cincinnati’s first offensive play of the season involved Burrow taking a sack, and the second offensive play of the season resulted in this.

The practice runs of the preseason give players time to work out the kinks and get back to their ability to play elite football. In 2021, after a year off from football due to the pandemic, Ja’Marr Chase struggled mightily with dropping passes in his first NFL preseason. Many fans were quick to be critical of Chase, particularly when he blamed his drops on the size and shape of an NFL football.

“The ball is different because it is bigger,” Chase said in 2021. “It doesn’t have the white stripes on the side so you can’t see the ball coming from the tip point so you actually have to look for the strings on the ball at the top, which is hard to see because (the) whole ball is brown and you have the six strings that are white. But for the most part, (I) just have to get used to it and find out what I am comfortable with catching.”

Once he was able to spend an entire preseason working on his catching, he proceeded to spend the entirety of his career wiping his cheeks with NFL secondaries.

Taylor was apprehensive to play preseason players in the past because he wanted to keep his players healthy for the regular season, especially given Burrow’s injury setbacks over the last two years. That mentality may have kept them fresh over the long haul, but the starters didn’t appear caught up to game speed.

But now, Burrow is been fully cleared for contact, and he’ll likely see some in-game action in the preseason opener against the Buccaneers. For a quarterback who hasn’t played in a game since mid-November, having him in game action will be critical, especially given the fact that the Bengals play the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs in Week 2.

Burrow and Taylor are on the same page as far as his preseason reps. Burrow is eager to get on the field for “a live scrimmage”, which he believes will get him ready for the regular season.

“I’m excited for it,” Burrow said. “Haven’t been able to do so the past couple of years… I’m going to have the opportunity to get hit. The best way to prepare for Week 1.”

Of course, this doesn’t mean we should expect to see Burrow playing into the second half. Preseason reps should be limited, as having players enter the season fully healthy and rested is crucial. It’s on Taylor to find a balance between giving his starters reps to prepare for the regular season while keeping them healthy enough to not suffer an injury setback. Fans became all too familiar with that concept on the third play of the 1995 preseason.

Monitoring health is especially needed for a team that has already seen Sam Hubbard, Amarius Mims, Jermaine Burton, and Cam Sample all leave practice early this week. While Hubbard, Mims, and Burton will all likely be okay, the prognosis may not be as optimistic for Sample.

As for the Bengals’ preseason opener, Taylor has said that “nothing is set in stone” as far as giving starters in-game reps. However, assuming everything goes to plan health-wise, some starters will likely see their first in-game action at home against the Buccaneers next Saturday at Paycor Stadium.

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