Bengals Beat: Status Quo Is Fine By Bengals as Logan Wilson Departs, Trey Hendrickson Remains, Duke Tobin Speculation Begins

CINCINNATI — The Bengals decided the status quo was good enough.

That’s how the trade deadline came and went for the Bengals. Yes, they traded Logan Wilson away to Dallas for a seventh-round pick Tuesday morning and some cap space. But the organization did nothing to address the multiple needs on a defensive roster that is lacking desperately everywhere, except for Trey Hendrickson, Dax Hill and DJ Turner.

The Bengals could have been aggressive like the New York Jets and dealt pieces away for higher round future picks – not that they have talent that would bring first-rounders back in return. Or they could’ve been the Dallas Cowboys, who decided to add a Pro Bowl nose tackle in Quinnen Williams.

Is it a sign perhaps that they don’t want to do anything until they decide whether Duke Tobin and/or Zac Taylor will be in the building in 2026? Perhaps. But given their history over the last 40 years, they’d rather sit back and build through the picks they have and not get creative or aggressive in roster building. Now is the time to do it with a 3-6 roster that’s headed nowhere.

But they believe they’ve been drafting well and building steadily, despite the fact that Geno Atkins (2015) was the last first-team All-Pro defensive player drafted and developed by the Bengals.

Bengals fans are being told to be patient and trust the front office that they know what they’re doing and they don’t do anything rash. Well, that conservative approach has been a failure on the defensive side the last five years, and they’ve paid the price for the cleanup. Bengals fans watched Tuesday as the Jets, the previously winless team that came into Paycor and beat the Bengals, 39-38, decided to take the pieces they had on a current roster that wasn’t winning and fetched two firsts from the Colts for corner Sauce Gardner and a first and second for Quinnen Williams.

Whether it’s the Cowboys or Colts going all in to get proven stars or the Jets reloading with first and second-day picks, those teams looked at Tuesday as an opportunity.

The Bengals looked at Tuesday as a nice way to clear some cap space. If the Howie Rosemans of the NFL world have taught us anything, you win with talent, not cap room. The Bengals will take on dead cap hits of $5.9 million this season and $4 million in 2026. The Bengals moves in free agency and the draft the last six years haven’t demonstrated that they’re likely to take full advantage of that.

Two weeks ago, Wilson asked the team to trade him after he was replaced by rookie Barrett Carter as the primary middle linebacker in the team’s nickel base defense.

Wilson, a sixth-year player out of the University of Wyoming, originally was a third-round pick of the Bengals in 2020. He played in 76 regular-season games with 65 starts for Cincinnati and totaled 531 tackles (308 solos), 19 tackles for loss, 5.5 sacks, 25 passes defended, 11 interceptions, seven forced fumbles and three fumble recoveries. He also played and started seven postseason contests, recording 62 tackles, four TFLs, three PDs, one INT and one FF.

Wilson will be fondly remembered in his time in Cincinnati for his interception at the end of the playoff game in Tennessee that led to Evan McPherson’s game-winning field goal as time expired to beat the No. 1 seed Titans in the 2021 AFC Divisional round. The other memorable play from those playoffs unfortunately came late in Super Bowl LVI when he was called for a highly questionable defensive holding call. With the Rams facing third-and-goal at the Cincinnati 8, Ron Torbert’s crew flagged him for grabbing Cooper Kupp at the Bengals 3 and gave the Rams a new set of downs.

“I appreciate everything Logan has done as a player and as a person during his time in Cincinnati,” said head coach Zac Taylor in a team statement. “He has been a central part of our defense over the past six years, and he will be remembered as a leader in our locker room. I wish him the best moving forward.”

Wilson was a primary piece of a defense that grew into a dominant force during the club’s run to Super Bowl LVI. He was signed to a four-year, $36 million extension prior to the 2023 season and is under contract through the 2027 season. The Cowboys remade a good portion of their defense before Tuesday’s 4 p.m. ET trade deadline.

Wilson, now 29, appeared to lose a step this season and he was unable to track down faster runners and drop in coverage as a linebacker who wears the signal-calling green dot on his helmet. The Bengals drafted Demetrius Knight Jr. in the second round and Barrett Carter in the fourth as the writing appeared on the wall.

Elected one of three captains on defense (with Trey Hendrickson and BJ Hill) before the season, Wilson was seen as a strong voice in the locker room, and showed his character in continuing to coach up and support Carter and Knight who were drafted to eventually grow into his role.

“When we found out that I was going to take over, he came up to me that next practice and said, he put his arm around me and said, ‘You know, it’s no hard feelings between us,” Carter told me. “I love you. I’m still going to pour into you, and I still want you to ask me questions and still, like, lean on me. So I’m going to still lean (on you). I’m still going to pour into you.’ … Logan just showed that he’s made up of the right stuff. And he’s a true man, a true leader, and that’s why he’s so respected.”

Carter and his teammates had one more chance to say good luck in Big D this morning when they saw Wilson gather his belongings and leave after the trade was announced.

“Honestly, I saw it, and then he walked in the training room and say bye to everyone, and then I like, so it kind of just happened naturally,” Carter said. “But, I went over to him and hugged him, and, you know, told him I loved him. And you know, he expressed to me that his phone is always open with like, and I’m always, he’s always a phone call away, and he’s always gonna keep pouring into me. So I’m just forever grateful for, know the bond that we have and just the love that we have. Just he was essential, an essential part of my growth, my development. So that’s a special guy, special place for me.”

“It’s the NFL. It’s the nature of the beast, if you will. If the guys are unhappy, they’re gonna voice their opinion,” Knight added. “And phenomenal player like that, he’s got to be on the field, and the team sees that in him. Definitely sucks, because that’s the first person you get. A young Demetrius Knight gets a message from draft night and it’s like, man, that’s that’s Logan Wilson sending me a text message saying welcome, welcome home, and knowing that he’ll have a different home. There’s no hurt, harm or done there. It’s, it’s just, that’s my brother, and that’s, you know, another guy that I’ve you know, continue to walk it, walk in faith with. I know he’s walking that journey, definitely right now, trusting the Lord, and I guess we’re all in the same boat right now.”

Despite his trade request before the season and the back/hip injury he’s battling right now, Bengals star edge rusher Trey Hendrickson is staying put on trade deadline day.

Other takeaways from getaway Monday and Tuesday before the bye:

Al Golden receives a vote of confidence from Zac Taylor.

“(He’s) working like crazy. He’s a great football coach. He’s doing everything he can to uncover every single stone to make us play better,” Taylor said. “I mean, we’re all sick for the way that these games have gone, him probably as much as anybody else on this planet. And so I trust in him, trust in his staff, that we’re going to keep working and get all these guys on the same page, execute on a high level, and be good defense going forward.”

“At the end of the day it rests with me,” Golden said. “Special teams did a heckuva job. Obviously the offense did an excellent job, and they’re scoring in bunches right now. I have to do a better job, there’s no doubt about it. I think from a scheme standpoint there’s nothing that’s not on the table. We have to examine all that. At the same time we don’t have to be perfect. You name the play, where there was a batted ball, a sack where we had three chances to get him before the big play. One takeaway whether that’s a caused fumble or an interception. Any one of those plays could be the difference in the game. I do take it personally and I know the coaches take it personally. We have a great group of young men in the locker room, guys like Geno, to be honest with you, that are upstairs in the building trying to get better today. Know that when outcomes like this occur it’s never just one simple fix. There are a lot of elements that go into it. We just got to get back to work on it.”

Duke Tobin, per Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, is on the hot seat and his job is being re-evaluated after the poor performance and grossly underperforming results of the team through nine games.

Yes, Joe Burrow was injured in Week 2 but the defense is a mess and there are few leaders throughout the locker room that have stepped up and called out the team. Geno Stone would be one. Ja’Marr Chase has kept his cool remarkably well. Joe Flacco has done everything humanly possible to give the Bengals a chance to overcome their historically bad defense.

“(The front office is) constantly evaluating everyone. Players who will be back or not be back,” Florio said. “Coaches who will be back or not be back. There’s this bubbling up now that Duke Tobin, the defacto GM, is gonna be out. We’ll see. Maybe during the bye week, maybe sooner… Heads are gonna roll in Cincinnati. This is unacceptable, because it’s largely unprecedented how bad this defense is.”

“My experience with Duke has just always been very approachable and open to input and wanting to hear your opinion,” offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher said Tuesday. “I sit up there in draft meetings and you never feel like it’s, Hey, we got this guy figured out. Yeah, what do you think? But there’s none of that. If you did work, did you evaluate him? Great. You evaluate him, what do you think? How does he fit us? How would we use him? And really listening and factoring that into the process. So as a coach, that’s really all you can ask for, and there’s a lot of factors that come into making decisions having come up on that side of it. In my early career, I got a lot of respect for those factors and no decision is easy and there’s a lot of sometimes competing elements at play. So like I said, I got nothing but respect for those guys and I’ve appreciated working with him.”

Second-year receiver Jermaine Burton was not on the field nor seen in the building for a glorified walkthrough practice for first and second-year players inside Paycor Stadium.

The team said he was excused ill and had been dealing with an illness for the last several days.

Jordan Battle said the defense was having trouble Sunday against the Bears Sunday getting in proper alignment.