The Bengals Have 5 Players to Watch Against Detroit
John takes a closer look at Dohnte Meyers, Jack Endries, Brian Parker II, Kris Jenkins Jr., and Josh Newton, explaining what each player can show against Detroit and why their performances could be important as the Bengals evaluate their roster. From young players looking to establish themselves to potential contributors fighting for bigger roles, Thursday night's game will provide the first major test of the preseason.
Video Transcript
The stars are gonna be out Thursday night when the Bengals take on the Detroit Lions in their preseason opener.
Joe Burrow, Ja'Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, Dexter Lawrence are all confirmed to be playing at least a little bit of Cincinnati's first exhibition.
But none of those guys are who I'm most interested in watching for when Cincinnati finally takes the field for the first time in 2026.
I'm John Scheer of A to Z Sports, Cincinnati.
This is A to Z Sports, Cincinnati, covering your Cincinnati Bengals throughout the 2026 pre-season.
Guys, let's face it, it's gonna be very exciting to see the best players on the Bengals play again for the first time since the regular season ended all the way back in January.
But what we're gonna see Thursday night isn't gonna be anything close to what we're gonna see when September rolls around.
When the Bengals offense takes the field, the number one priority is getting the operations of everything all checked out, and making sure that everyone leaves the game with a clean bill of health.
There's not gonna be anything crazy that we're gonna see in terms of play calls.
It's gonna be very vanilla, very mundane, a lot of install stuff, just very basic things to get these guys back into the rhythm of playing again.
The biggest storylines of the pre-season are whether or not the star players of the league do end up being healthy enough for the regular season.
But the most interesting aspect of training camp is when they leave the field, and then the backups and the reserves take the field for the remainder of the game, because that is when you really start to see the effort and the aggression really pick up a little bit, because these guys are not only fighting for standing in the depth chart, but they're fighting for their roster lives.
Sure, it doesn't look always clean.
Obviously they're not the best players on their team.
But you can tell the effort and the intensity is there because they are s- fighting and scrapping just to stay in the league.
And it's also where we can verify if some of the training camp darlings are actually for real, if they can do it against other teams when they don't know what's going to happen.
Can they take that momentum from the first two weeks of camp and translate it into actual film?
And that is what I'm gonna be most interested when the Bengals take on the Lions, and there are five players that I'm gonna be watching very intensely.
Colbi Young is getting a lot of the attention for the Bengals wide receiver room as the rookie who was already gonna make the team, but now could be, potentially be pushing Andre Osikhuoise for starting snaps.
But I'm more interested in this guy, Dante Myers, whether or not he makes the team.
Myers' story is incredible.
He went to a couple of low-level college programs.
The only taste of the NFL he ever had was in a mini camp trial with the Atlanta Falcons a handful of years ago, and then he took his time in trying to build his way up through the CFL.
He had a couple of really good seasons with the Saskatchewan Roughriders, not only productive as a receiver, but also a return man.
The Bengals executive scouting director, Andrew Johnson, who's responsible for the other pro leagues that aren't the NFL, you know, he noticed Myers.
He got a lot of good intel from him in the scouting report, and they signed him all the way back in January right after the regular season ended.
He's on the smaller side.
He's about 5'11", 185 pounds.
He looks like a slot receiver out there, but he's definitely shifting.
I think he's a little bit stronger than what people give him credit for, for his size.
And after two weeks of camp, he's proving Johnson's scouting report pretty correctly.
He's just making play after play.
He keeps showing up.
He keeps drawing rave reviews from his teammates.
The guy from the CFL, not even a rookie anymore, like he's turning heads.
And it really does feel like every year we see a receiver rise from the previously unknown on the Bengals depth chart.
Last year it was Mitchell Tinsley.
A couple years ago it was Kendrick Pryor, you know, Damian Willis, Dane Sanzenbacher, Jake Kumero for the longtime fans out there.
It seems like every year there's a receiver on the Bengals who really makes a name for himself in the pre-season, and sometimes that does start in the off-season program in training camp.
And I think it's started for Myers already.
Now we need to see if he can carry that momentum into the pre-season.
Because if he does, he has a very real shot at making this team as the number six receiver.
Now some of these guys have not had the best training camps, and oftentimes I think they've been kind of flying way under the radar for not really making that much of an impact, and I think that's the case for tight end Jack Andrews, who I was really high on coming out of the 2026 draft.
When the Bengals drafted him in the seventh round, that was one of the steals of the entire draft, in my opinion.
We haven't really heard from him ever since he really came to the Bengals and made the whole spiel about, "I'm gonna make every team, team regret not drafting me until the seventh round."
Cincinnati has seven tight ends on the roster, and I don't think that Andrews is any higher than sixth on the depth chart.
And this is a position that they would keep five at most.
From the limited footage that I've seen, it looks like a lot of what they're asking him to do is very reminiscent of what they're asking Eric Eal to do, and that makes sense.
They have similar body types, and I think similar skill sets.
Andrews has really taken a leap, in my opinion, this training camp and over the last year at Texas in his inline blocking, and I feel like that is what's going to make him the most valuable in terms of the conversation as to how many tight ends they keep and which tight ends they keep.
And if Andrews is Eal's backup, if he's basically taking on the same role just in the second or third team, Joe Goodberry pointed this out on Twitter a couple of days ago, it seems like the Bengals have this two deep depth chart at three different roles at tight end.
Mike Eseke is backed up by Tanner Hudson because they're basically just big wide receivers.
Drew Sample's backed up by Cam Gransey.
They are the traditional classic inline wide tight ends.
And then Eric Eal and Jack Andrews are kinda like these versatile pieces that can really play both positions but can also move across the formations and be detached from the formation, maybe even line up in the backfield as a lead blocker.
So Andrews does have value here, especially because he's behind a player that has an obvious injury history in Eal, but I really wanna see how that translates into the pre-season.
How does he block?
Is he reliable as a pass catcher?
Can he generate yards after the catch?
This is a really, really big two-week stretch for him in order just to make the team.
And I would be shocked if he doesn't get a lot of playing time, at least in this game against the Lions.
So I think week three against the Eagles is gonna be his real big show to make some sort of a statement, but it all starts on Thursday night You can throw in Bryan Parker in a very similar boat to Endries, a guy who we just haven't really heard that much of during training camp.
But rest assured, he's getting reps.
He is firmly a part of the second team offensive line.
He's taking reps at center, both guard spots.
I think most of the time he's been at left guard behind starter Dylan Fairchild, and that's the role that he is expected to have when the regular season begins.
But this is a bit personal for me because Bryan Parker, in, in my opinion, should've been drafted so much earlier than when the Bengals took him in the sixth round, and I really wanna see him ball out against players that I know he's better than, even as a rookie.
So for one, I wanna see if he's at left guard or right guard when the Bengals deploy their second team offensive line because, again, he's taking reps at both spots.
I don't think he's gonna rep at center even if Connor Lue is not going to play in this game.
He might, he might actually be moved to center when, you know, really late in the game if they take out backup Jacob Bayer, but I do expect Bayer to be the second team center with Bryan Parker flanking him to either the left or the right.
So does he get moved around during this game?
Does he end up taking any snaps?
But just how does he look, honestly, because I just haven't seen a lot of tape from him during training camp going up against the Bengals second team defensive line, which has been deeper than it has been in years past.
So I think he is getting some decent work in in training camp.
We just haven't heard a lot about him, and I really wanna see how he looks against the Lions.
A part of that second team defensive line that Parker's working up against is Chris Jenkins, who's actually taken some first team reps when Jonathan Allen and BJ Hill have been out over the course of this training camp.
Allen's been taking some rest days, and BJ Hill's still on the physically unable to perform list.
So Jenkins has been getting some reps, he just hasn't really made that much of an impact.
Of course, it's really hard to make an impact when Dexter Lawrence is stealing the show, but Lawrence should be making Chris Jenkins' job a lot easier.
We just haven't really heard anything positive about him out of training camp.
So how does he look in the preseason?
I expect him to be out there sometime in the first quarter.
He may even be out there in the first couple of drives when they're rotating these guys in and out.
Again, I think they may want to limit Jonathan Allen and how much he plays.
BJ Hill is not going to play so when they're in those odd fronts with three defensive tackles, Chris Jenkins should be out there, either alongside TJ Slayton, Dexter Lawrence obviously, or Allen himself.
This is the third year of Jenkins' career.
Like, he's got obvious NFL bloodlines, his dad being a former All-Pro nose tackle for the Carolina Panthers.
Just how does he look now?
How much has he progressed into what should be the year in which a lot of defensive tackles really take that next step?
It is tough to be a young defensive tackle in the NFL, and it's especially a position that has grown in terms of value and versatility and how much these guys can do.
But, you know, third year is typically when you like to see these guys make that leap, and this is the start of that for Jenkins.
How does he look disengaging from blocks, winning as a pass rusher, his pass rushing plan?
How do the Bengals deploy him alongside some new faces?
I'm really curious to see any sort of progression from Jenkins.
And if he doesn't show that, then I honestly, they might play him a lot just to get him exposed to other teams that may wanna trade for him.
McKinnley Jackson, who has often been linked and associated with Jenkins as fellow draftmates from 2024 in the second day of that draft, I think he's kind of, he sounds like he's in a similar boat.
He's gotten plenty of reps with the second team and, you know, maybe he's taking the stride as well.
Again, the preseason's gonna be huge for both these guys.
And finally, another member from that 2024 draft class.
Where has Josh Newton been?
I think we really first heard about him doing anything positive this week on Tuesday when all three starting cornerbacks, DJ Turner, Dax Hill, and Jaylen Davis, were either resting or they were out with injuries.
He was finally a part of first team action, and he made some good plays against both Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins.
Can he keep that up, though?
Because he absolutely needs to if he wants to make this team.
Right now, I think there are six cornerbacks who are either locks or damn near locks to make the roster.
Three starters, Turner, Hill, and Davis, and then you got backup slot cornerback Jasir Taylor alongside DJ Ivy and rookie Dikario Davis.
Where exactly is the room for Newton to make this team?
The only way he does, I think, is if he bumps out Ivy, if he just completely outshines him in the preseason.
And it's nice to see for Newton to have some positive momentum going into this game, but can he keep that up?
Because he's been often exposed for his lack of, you know, straight line speed and overall athleticism at cornerback and coverage.
Can he find a way to overcome that against, you know, relatively similar competition in the preseason?
This is an area in which Newton should be expected to succeed, and if he doesn't, his ca- his time with the Bengals is probably coming to an end.
The Bengals officially open their preseason, the first of three and the first of two home games, Thursday night at 7:00 PM against the Detroit Lions.
Check back here right after the game.
We're gonna go live with our initial reactions, observations, and takeaways from the Bengals' first preseason game.
We'll see you here on ABC Sports Cincinnati.
