The Defense Was Already Thin. Now It's Breaking.
The number that should haunt Cincinnati's front office isn't from last season — though 4.6 wins left on the field is damning enough on its own. It's the number of first-round defensive ends currently healthy enough to practice: zero. Shemar Stewart, carted off during the first 11-on-11 drill of training camp on July 29 with a hyperextended knee, remains Questionable. The player acquired to anchor a pass rush that couldn't generate consistent pressure in 2025 has yet to take a live snap in the system built around him.
I wrote last week about the gap between what this front office spent and what the roster could actually absorb. The Dexter Lawrence acquisition was real capital, real commitment — one of the five best defensive tackles in the league, brought in specifically because the 2025 defense hemorrhaged enough to cost this team nearly five wins it earned on offense. That investment still stands, and Lawrence has been healthy throughout camp. But the defensive line was never going to be a one-man project. B.J. Hill, who was supposed to share that interior burden, is now out. Two of the three players at the top of the defensive tackle rotation are either unavailable or compromised before the season begins.
What makes this particularly brutal is the structural context. The 2025 Bengals were not a bad football team — they were a fractured one. Burrow threw for 17 touchdowns in eight games before his season ended. Chase posted 125 catches for 1,412 yards. Higgins added 11 touchdowns. Chase Brown crossed a thousand rushing yards. The offense did everything asked of it, and the defense still couldn't close the gap. That's the mismatch the front office was trying to fix. The offseason wasn't about rebuilding from scratch; it was about patching the one side of the ball that was actively sabotaging the other. And now that patch is tearing before Week 1.
The depth problem compounds everything. The cornerback position carried a single player who saw meaningful snaps in 2025 — and that player produced well below what a starting corner should. Behind him, the depth chart is essentially theoretical. The linebacker rotation carried two contributors. The secondary added Bryan Cook in late July, which helps, but one signing cannot paper over a unit that was already thin before the injuries started. Stewart's hyperextended knee doesn't just cost Cincinnati a pass rusher; it removes the one player who was supposed to give the rest of the defense breathing room by collapsing the pocket from the outside.
My read is that the Bengals are now in a position where the math of 2025 could repeat itself almost exactly — an elite offense generating wins the defense cannot protect. The offensive core is intact: Burrow, Chase, Higgins, and Chase Brown are all active. The passing attack will be one of the best in the league. But if Stewart misses significant time, and Hill is unavailable for the opener, the defensive line that was supposed to be the foundation of coordinator Al Golden's rebuild will enter the season with Lawrence as its primary functioning piece. One player, however elite, is not a defensive line. The 2025 Bengals proved that the hard way. The 2026 version is in danger of learning the same lesson before the first regular-season snap.