Cincinnati Bengals Avoid MASSIVE Injury Scare During Training Camp
The Cincinnati Bengals avoided a MASSIVE injury scare during Day 5 of training camp as DJ Turner went down during practice. John Sheeran recaps everything that happened at Bengals training camp, including the latest on Turner's injury scare, Dexter Lawrence's massive impact, and the Bengals putting on the pads for the first time.
Video Transcript
The Bengals survived another injury scare at practice, and the offense struggled mightily compared to the defense in the first day of padded practice.
I'm John Sheeran of A to Z Sports Cincinnati.
This is A to Z Sports Cincinnati, covering your Cincinnati Bengals through 2026 training camp.
Breaking down.
It's always an important day on the Bengals calendar when they pull out the pads for the very first time.
The Bengals were in shells Monday morning with helmets on.
It's the first day they went up against each other in pads for the first time this year.
And naturally, not every part of the team is going to look 100% ready for week one.
It's an annual tradition in Cincinnati to proclaim that the defensive side of the ball is more ready, it's more in sync, and is making more plays compared to the offensive side of the ball.
Regardless of who's out there, regardless of who is not out there, the defense is typically ahead of the offense at this point in the ramp-up to the regular season.
But through five practices so far, it's been the defense that's been relatively more banged up compared to the offense, and things almost got significantly worse Monday morning.
On the very first play of the final 11 on 11 session on Monday morning, Bengals cornerback DJ Turner limped off the field and was checking out his lower right leg, somewhere around his calf region.
He was stretching out.
He was trying to see if he can put any weight on it.
He was just walking around, still with his helmet on.
He took his helmet off very briefly as he talked to the trainers, and just a couple of plays later, Turner was back in there.
So appeared to be maybe some, you know, calf cramps or maybe some sort of just, you know, tenderness there.
Regardless, he was able to finish practice and move on from it.
Now, calf injuries, calf strains, they can be pretty, you know, strenuous.
They can be either a couple weeks.
They could be several months.
You know, Joe Burrow suffered his calf strain back in 2023, and he was out for several weeks.
They can also be, you know, precursors to Achilles injuries, so it's never fun whenever a cornerback or any player, you know, suffers an injury in that general region of his body.
But the good news is for Turner, if he was able to come back out there and able to go 100%, clearly must have been just a cramp, and he was able to walk it off.
Now, Turner has had a really strong start to training camp this year.
Earlier in the day, he made a great pass breakup against Ja'Marr Chase, as he's been going up against Ja'Marr Chase for the majority of camp.
You know, obviously they're number one wide receiver and the number one cornerback.
They're gonna face off, and they're gonna battle all throughout camp, right?
And I think Turner had a really good play earlier in the red zone drills, where he almost picked it off, and he seemed pretty upset that he didn't snag that interception, just landed with a PBU.
But he's had a really good ca- camp, and it's been really impressive seeing him, you know, just being out there and taking, you know, a charge as a leader, while there's these contract negotiations looming over his head.
And situations like this in which, you know, he can suffer a minor injury or get banged up, maybe he wants to take some reps off, and maybe he wants to take it easy because, again, like, he wants to maybe preserve himself while negotiations are happening.
That doesn't seem to be the case, and today was further affirmation about where Turner mindset is, in my opinion, and him pushing through injuries and him pushing through the pain while trying to get more reps in there, trying to get better each and every day as he goes up against Ja'Marr Chase in the ultimate iron sharpens iron environment.
That was really cool to see.
It's also really cool to see Dexter Lawrence out there in pads for the first time and just to see how insanely large of a human he is compared to, you know, guys who are just off on the sideline working for the team.
I mean, just this discrepancy of size is a marvel to look at, and it's not, "Oh, Dexter Lawrence is fat," like some fans think that he is.
No, he's just insanely huge.
He's 6'4", 6'5", 340, 350 pounds, and when you add pads on top of that, he looks even more menacing.
He looks like one of those giants from the Odyssey.
And it seems like Lawrence had another dominating day as the centerpiece for the Bengals defensive line.
In fact, really the entire defensive line I thought looked pretty sharp out there today.
The Bengals were trying, you know, some more creativity with their under center, play action and under center concepts and just trying to get these long development plays out there, and they were read pretty quickly, specifically by Boye Mafe off the edge.
He was blowing up a, a few plays and had Joe Burrow, you know, killing the play and throwing the ball into the dirt.
But it has been really hard for the Bengals offensive line to block Dexter Lawrence specifically, who made a couple of plays in the run.
Yet again, that's just what his specialty is, and he's getting some movement in the pass game as well.
So it was a really good day, really promising day for the Bengals defensive line as the Bengals offense is really trying to find itself right now.
And it's encouraging that they are continuing to push through with a lot of these under center concepts because they need them to be successful in the regular season in order to generate explosive plays in ways in which they haven't been able to over the last handful of years.
We all know the defenses are gonna be so fearful of both Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins with Joe Burrow throwing them the ball.
So they're just gonna wanna sit back and have everything be, you know, underneath them and try to make the Bengals win in the small games and try to have them, you know, score on these long developing drives instead of just, you know, chucking the ball down the field.
So the Bengals need to get defenses out of that, and they need to keep them on their toes with a lot of these, you know, misdirections and these play action concepts from under center in which, yeah, it, it can look like a run play at the beginning of the play.
But right now, it seems like the defense is pretty on top of it, and especially when you have a guy like Lawrence blowing up the play from the interior.
It's just been really tough for the Bengals offense to get through that part of the playbook.
But it's important, it's critical even, that they continue pushing through it because that's the only way it's gonna be successful when the games count.
I actually wrote about this for an article on adzsports.com in which Nate Tice broke down the Bengals offense in a video for Yahoo Sports last week, and he broke down how against cloud coverage, against cover two, against some of these deep shells, the Bengals offense is just not that efficient with Joe Burrow on the field, saying, quote, "When facing cloud, they were 26 in EPA per play," and this was with Joe Burrow on the field.
20th in success rate, 20th in rushing success rate, 17th in passing success rate, and even, you know, he was taking more sacks, Joe Burrow was, when facing these kinds of coverages.
So again, those play action concepts are a way to get defenses out of that, to get them to stack the box a little bit more, and to free up some space downfield for some of these explosive plays.
And we did see a couple of instances on Monday in which Joe Burrow was able to find some guys on some of these deep crossers and these in-breaking routes that are traditionally used to beat some of these cloud coverages and some of these safeties by, you know, stressing them to get back towards the middle of the field.
But it just hasn't been enough as of yet.
There's just been too many kinks in what's going on.
And again, this is the time of the year to work those things out, to keep progressing through.
And especially if the Bengals defense is in fact improved and they are causing so m- so much disruption, and that's a precursor to what the regular season is gonna be, then at least the Bengals are going up against a pretty formidable unit, and they're gonna get a lot of needed practice time before they go up against the real thing.
This had nothing to do with training camp, but it did show up right before practice began, and I felt like I needed to talk about it because both Tee Higgins and Dexter Lawrence were just barely left off this year's top 100 NFL players of 2026.
Tee Higgins came at number 109 overall, and Dexter Lawrence at number 105 overall.
And it's one thing to be left off the list, but it's another thing to be barely left off the list.
And to me, that I think gives them even more motivation that, "Oh," like, "I just still wasn't good enough to just be barely left off the list, huh?"
Tee Higgins made his first Pro Bowl last year.
He set a career high in touchdowns with 11, and he had three different quarterbacks throwing him the football.
It was a very critical year for him coming back from, you know, an injury-filled 2024 season in which he was still productive, but he showed that he really solidified his standing as one of the best receivers in the NFL.
And he does have a lot of respect from players.
But I, I do think that this can be motivation for him going into 2026, and there is no shortage of motivation for Dexter Lawrence, who basically has the entire world saying he's not the same player that he was.
He was the number 17 player in the league according to his peers this time last year.
And this year, I guess he's not in the top 100 anymore.
How does Dexter Lawrence feel about that?
Well, so far through training camp, he looks like one of the best players on the Bengals roster at the very least.
Joe Burrow did come in at number 44 on this list last week, and I do expect Ja'Marr Chase to come in a bit higher in the coming days or weeks.
But I think both of these guys, Higgins and Lawrence, who were teammates back in Clemson back in the day, I think they're gonna have a little bit more motivation entering the season now.
As far as other news and notes from training camp, it looked like Colby Young made his first big time splash play of training camp, practicing with the twos with Joe Flacco throwing him the football in a very contested situation.
He climbed the ladder over top veteran safety Kyle Dugger and made a great catch on the sideline.
Takaryo Davis, another rookie from this year's 2026 draft class, he almost made an, a spectacular interception on the opposite sideline, going up against the second team receivers as well.
So both those guys, I mean, they're tall, they're lanky, they got a lot of speed to their games, but you know, they're making plays in areas in which I could expect them to make plays.
But I think they're firmly with the second string right now.
That's their expected roles going into the season, so it's nice to see them show up in the first day of pads.
The standout of the day appeared to be safety Jordan Battle, who was making a handful of plays in coverage and as well as in run defense.
And I think just him just being more comfortable, playing a little bit faster, having more confidence in the players around him and maybe specifically in front of him as there's so much chaos and disruption being caused by this defensive line.
It's good to see Battle make more consistent plays on the ball, as that was a strength of his last year when he, you know, he forced six turnovers, but he was out of position oftentimes, and he missed a lot of tackles.
So him playing confident, faster, and getting in position a lot quicker, that is great news for the Bengals.
But that's gonna do it for today's recap of Bengals training camp.
I'll be reporting live tomorrow from Bengals training camp for the second day of padded practice.
I'll get some clips to you guys as well.
But before that happens, comment down below what your observations from Bengals training camp has been so far.
I'll see you next time.
