What we learned from the Bengals' 2025 draft — It's back to 2020 on defense

Zac Taylor is the eighth-longest tenured head coach in the NFL, and rosters go through cycles during head coaching tenures that last this long.

The Bengals’ 2025 NFL Draft showed that on defense, they’re right back where they were in 2020. They spent this weekend working to overhaul the culture, identity, physicality and presence of the team, particularly at offensive line, defensive line and linebacker like they did five years ago.

With their 2025 draft class — defensive end Shemar Stewart, linebacker Demetrius Knight Jr., guard Dylan Fairchild, linebacker Barrett Carter, offensive lineman Jalen Rivers and running back Tahj Brooks — the Bengals followed the same path that they used in 2020.

They drafted some more captains from big schools whose leadership demonstrably showed up on the field last year. They drafted guys who the Bengals feel already know how to win.

“The theme is they love football, all six of these guys,” Zac Taylor said. “Some I know better than others, but that's what you took away - they just love talking football, they love being around football and they love their teammates. They made huge impacts on the programs that they were at, and by huge impact I mean not only on the field, but talked about them off the field and the impact that they made there. That means something to us.”

Back in 2021, I wrote a story about the Bengals’ 2020 draft class. Golden described the Bengals’ approach with those picks as a way to “mitigate risk.”

The Bengals are trying to do that again this season.

Last year, the Bengals took some chances with the character backgrounds behind a few of their picks. This year, the Bengals reverted back to the 2020 approach.

“That group stayed together for four or five years and went to a Super Bowl, two AFC Championship games and were division champions a couple of times,” Golden said. “I think it’s important you have high-character guys that will compete and understand the bigger picture in terms of leadership and on-field command and presence, and I think these guys do.”

That 2020 draft class was arguably the best in franchise history, and it was an indispensable part of the process of rebuilding and resetting the culture, identity and physicality of a team that ended up going to the Super Bowl.

We all know what Joe Burrow and Tee Higgins have done, but the connection here is linked to what happened over the rest of that draft.

Logan Wilson is one of this team’s best Day 2 picks in years, Akeem Davis-Gaither and Markus Bailey’s ability to provide depth and special teams value truly mattered, Khalid Kareem made one of the biggest plays of the 2021 season and, hey, the Bengals won playoff games with Hakeem Adeniji at guard.

The 2025 Bengals are still a flawed team. The coaches laid out their plans at guard and pass rushing defensive tackle on Saturday, but you’ll have to really see those plans to believe them. This is still a Bengals’ team that hasn’t drafted a quality interior offensive linemen in years and a team that can’t seem to get consistent production from defensive draft picks.

This year, the Bengals’ front office went back to what its foundation is, just like Zac Taylor does as a play caller when things are crumbling and calls 40 passes to put the ball in Joe Burrow’s hands.

The Bengals are trying to replicate the class that they got in 2020.

“Adding good people that have leadership qualities is never a bad thing for us,” Taylor said. “I think these guys can walk in and they have to prove themselves first and foremost in the scheme. I believe that once they do that they will be able to take on whatever part of the career evolves for us.”

The upside of Knight, who’s 25, and Carter, who doesn’t have elite athleticism for the linebacker position, is a question. There were more physically gifted linemen than Fairchild and Rivers. In the first round, the Bengals could have taken more of a chance on the medicals of Derrick Harmon or Jihaad Campbell.

This defense desperately needed playmakers. It still does.

But what the defense needed even more is soul.

Stewart overcame incredible adversity, and his father credits Stewart’s discipline as the reason why he made it to the NFL. Al Golden called Stewart “the embodiment of what we want.”

Knight was a team captain and the heart of one of the best defenses in college football. Zac Taylor said, “He walks in the door (as) a mature leader. So many people that we’ve talked to — this is one of their favorite people that they’ve been around.”

Barrett was another team captain and carried a 4.0 GPA. Golden said, “He clearly, pre-snap, was in charge of that defense.”

“Those things are all important,” Golden said. “It allows you the freedom to get some checks executed on the field. We like to do a lot of our stuff on the grass, so to speak, so we need guys that can think on their toes and get us in the right call, and he’s capable of doing that.”

As the Bengals bumped up several captains on their draft board, the surprise of the weekend was that they didn’t select a single defensive tackle or safety.

At this point last year, the Bengals had nine defensive tackle. Right now, they have four!

And outside of BJ Hill (whose pass rush production dipped last year and isn’t an interior pass rusher who can lead a unit with those abilities), the Bengals have zero proven pass rushing defensive tackles. The Bengals signed TJ Slaton to stop the run, and they drafted Kris Jenkins and McKinnley Jackson to be run stoppers as well.

There were defensive tackles ranked highly on the Bengals’ board this week, but the draft just didn’t shake out in a way that landed a pass rushing DT in Cincinnati. One example might have been Walter Nolen, who went one pick before the Bengals’ turn in the first round.

“(Interior pass rush) is something you're always looking at,” Taylor said. We just at different points in the draft, hit at some other spots. Undrafted free agency is still coming. We'll work hard to add some guys to the mix there and I think we feel good about the four guys we have in the room right now. We feel good about how you can utilize some of the defensive ends, and in other passing situations as well.”

Now, they’ll have to be creative to find the interior pass rush that they completely lacked last season. Golden said that it’s a big deal to have the size at defensive end that the Bengals do with Joseph Ossai and Cam Sample, who can both kick inside on third downs.

“It’s not so stratified that, ‘The end has got to play here,’” Golden said. “Maybe your second-best end is a number-one third-down rusher. So, we’ll make sure that we rotate that around a lot to get a good look at everybody.”

Jenkins and Jackson didn’t show pass rush ability as rookies last year, but the Bengals now need development from them in that area on early downs, when you don’t kick defensive ends inside.

“I won’t discount anybody, especially not Kris and McKinnley, who were banged up a little bit in preseason and had a little bit of a slow start to their journey here in the NFL,” Golden said. “I can’t wait to get them back out there and start working with them again.”

Over the course of free agency and the draft, the Bengals simply prioritized other positions over interior pass rush. They’ll obviously have to address defensive tackle in some small way before the season because they need more than five DTs, but the plan between defensive tackle and linebacker showed how Golden is changing this defense.

Lou Anarumo matched big personnel groupings with five defensive linemen fronts that only included two linebackers. Golden uses more 4-3 and even some 3-4 looks.

To run those looks, you need fewer defensive tackles and more linebackers. Linebacker was the team’s biggest need heading into the draft.

“If we need to play with more linebackers, or if it’s bigger personnel and we need to play with four linebackers on the field, we’ll certainly do that,” Golden said.

He continued, “It just gives me a sense of, ‘OK, now we can plot the course,’ because we were waiting for, ‘Are we going to be a big nickel team against 12-personnel? Are we going to be a base team?’ So, at least we know now we have the components to go ahead and invest in a base package if we wanted to.”

The Bengals’ next-biggest need was offensive guard. Drafting Knight over Tate Ratledge was a defining moment for their draft strategy.

The Bengals still landed a guard who they view highly in Fairchild, who will get every chance to compete for the starting left guard spot. Rivers could enter the mix in camp at guard. But for now, he gives the Bengals something they lacked as a versatile swing tackle. Having him in the room helps Cody Ford (the favorite to win the right guard battle) focus on that spot.

Past the first round, the Bengals haven’t signed a good offensive lineman past the first round in a while. They took a new approach this year as Dan Pitcher and OL coach Scott Peters led the charge, but they stuck to their core belief that you need great intangibles, football IQ and leadership (just like they did at every position this weekend).

Like defensive tackle, the Bengals punted on the safety position. Malaki Starks, Kevin Winston and Nick Emmanwori looked like potential fits there, but the Bengals had too many needs to address all of them. There was a significant drop off in safeties available after Day 2, so now the Bengals move forward with Geno Stone at free safety, Jordan Battle at strong safety and Daijahn Anthony and Tycen Anderson as the depth.

You can make the case that when the Bengals cut Pratt, the most value that they’d be able to get from that cap space would come from signing free agent free safety Justin Simmons, who’s one of the most consistent center fielders in the NFL.

The biggest difference between 2020 and 2025 is that the 2020 Bengals had cap space and signed DJ Reader, Trae Waynes and Vonn Bell. The 2025 Bengals signed Slaton and Oren Burks (who’s now their fourth linebacker).

Still, this year’s draft picks are also set up to contribute or start immediately. They’ll also immediately change the way that the Bengals’ locker room feels, especially on the defensive side of the ball.

The Bengals believe that that’s good for an extra win, or more.