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Film Review of Bengals' Defensive Ends Ahead of Primetime Showdown vs Steelers

General Tucker Kraft won the battle for the D gap in Week 6 against the Bengals.
Max Toscano|
Green Bay Packers tight end Tucker Kraft (85) scores a touchdown during a game against the Cincinnati Bengals on Oct. 12, 2025, at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wis. The Packers defeated the Bengals 27-18.
Green Bay Packers tight end Tucker Kraft (85) scores a touchdown during a game against the Cincinnati Bengals on Oct. 12, 2025, at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wis. The Packers defeated the Bengals 27-18. | Sarah Kloepping/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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Cincinnati Bengals

The game of football starts in the trenches. When you think about it, of course it does. The offense's goal is to move that line of scrimmage forward, while the defense's goal is to stop them. At a baseline level, the soldiers stationed right on enemy lines have the first say in where that line goes. Football is a game of pushing people, and everything stems from there.

Basic football structures
Max Toscano digital drawing

Looking more closely at the demilitarized zone we see that "the trenches" are more like a coral reef than a singular entity. Each gap, each side of the line, and beyond creates different dynamics. The dynamics of winning on the interior for a defense are different than winning on the edge. They are all interconnected, but the line of scrimmage is a teeming physical and arithmetic community of shapes, sizes, angles, and paths. Today, we're going to talk about the C and D gaps, the end of the line.

Edge of the line
Screenshot of above

As I wrote this past spring ahead of the draft, this is the area of the line, in the current post-spread era, that is the key to everything. Winning it with strength is your key to playing light boxes. It is your key to cancelling space amidst the box/space conflict that offenses, especially those like Green Bay, are trying to create. Everything about modern spread defenses, from safety alignments to nickels defending RPOs, is allowed, even against good run games, by what you do here.

This is a battle the Bengals lost definitively on Sunday, one they have been losing since Sam Hubbard began his decline, and one they will likely need the return (and success) of Shemar Stewart to stop losing.

Master of His Kraft

Tucker Kraft blocking
Green Bay Packers running back Emanuel Wilson (31) stiff-arms Chicago Bears linebacker T.J. Edwards (53) as Edwards is blocked by Packers tight end Tucker Kraft (85) on Sunday, January 5, 2025, at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wis. The Bears won the game, 24-22, on a 51-yard field goal as time expired. Tork Mason/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin | Tork Mason / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The Packers bring some serious firepower to the C gap battlefield in tight end Tucker Kraft. At 6'5, 260, the cornfed South Dakota native is one of the most physical end men in the offensive world right now and is the key to GB's interplay between heavy and light boxes. As a blocker, he punishes you for emptying it, as a play-action threat, he does the same when you pack it.

The Packers here run wide zone from 12 personnel with both TEs attached to the line. As you can see in the animation, this creates 8 gaps on the line. Since the Bengals have both Safeties out of the run fit to play Cover-2, which they mixed in deceptively to give the Packers' air attack some issues, they are short a guy in the box to account for all the gaps.

You need to make this up somehow, and the Bengals, in their 3-4 alignment (with their standard 4-3 personnel), have their 4 DL 2-gapping to make up the numbers. 2-gapping wide zone is difficult, as you have to move your feet to go with your gaps, which move, and you can't just stand your guy up and fold into either one from a standstill.

It's nearly impossible on the interior, especially for someone as laterally-challenged as TJ Slaton. Because of that, the edge's ability to control the TE and close both the C and D gaps is paramount. The opposite happens to Hendrickson, and he's not only unable to stop Kraft from moving his feet and close the frontside, but he gets moved off the ball and can't fill either of his gaps. The Bengals get very lucky that Jacobs gets impatient and cuts it back too soon, because this is a chunk if he keeps pressing the outside and bounces.

On gap schemes with pullers like power and counter, it's good to have the DE head-up like this so there's no easy angle. If he aligns inside the TE, it's easy for him to just pin him down with the angle and get in the way.

If he aligns outside, the TE isn't responsible for him anymore, and he becomes the mark for the kickout block as the TE climbs to the relevant 2nd-level defender. If he's head-up, he gets on a neutral leverage field with the TE and can theoretically control both the C and D gaps, gumming up the perimeter and forcing the pullers either right into him when he folds out with it or back inside where he can fold in and congest.

Myles Murphy tries to do this, but Kraft strikes, forklifts, and extends to pin him inside and open the perimeter. This is another big one left on the field by the RB missing his read. If he follows his pullers, it's 1 v 1 in space with the corner and nobody else.

No run is harder to fit from light boxes than duo, simply because it is geared around creating extra gaps and hitting downhill quick so deep defenders have no time to drift down to the box late. Defenses can break that rule and kill this run by defeating the in-line TE.

The TE is the weakest element of the run-blocking offensive line, yet also the one with the hardest individual job on duo, as they have to go 1-on-1 with the DE without any kind of movement or assistance if he aligns head up on them or in the case of duo as opposed to counter or power, outside, as there are no pullers or kickouts.

Your interior DL cannot be displaced by the double teams, of course, but even if they hold up and do their job, the RB can just bounce it if the end is washed off the perimeter. The tricky thing is that the DE can't just run wide upfield and "set the edge", because the TE will go with him, turn him out, and create a new perimeter inside of him, cancelling that out. The key is to effectively strike, push back, and control the TE so that you can both collapse the space to bounce and occupy both the C and D gaps to win back the numbers you lose with both safeties deep.

You can see how that is supposed to work here with future Cincinnati Bengal (joking, but not really) and current Miami DE Ruben Bain. The playside LB stays inside, so the RB has to bounce, but the bounce takes him right into Bain, who has also closed the C gap inside with movement and control, while sitting in the D gap on the perimeter.

On the very next play, the Bengals put full bodies in the box despite the same personnel grouping being out there, but GB had loaded the counterpunch.

Had the Bengals been in 2-high like previously, they'd have had the SS available in the alley to come down and stop this for a 5-yard gain, but he's in the box fitting the C gap and reacting to the insert, which is a common block on duo and designed to present the same concept they ran previously.

They have all the second-level defenders they need to fit this run, but since the D has to play Cover-3 (since the box is loaded), the CB zones off deep and there's nobody left in the flat for the slip with the flat defender (Battle) pinned inside in the run fit. Kraft's ability to block like he does and also detach off it is tough to deal with, especially with how well LaFleur will package and sequence it. It's impossible if your DEs can't stand up to him physically.

So why don't you just have the playside LB take the edge and crash the DE inside so that he doesn't have to 2-gap the TE? Well, first of all, you have to be able to 2-gap a TE if you wanna play DE in the NFL, it's a TE. More seriously, though, that's fine for the offense.

Remember, you need to make up a body with the 2 safeties out, and with the double teams inside, you'll have a vacant gap somewhere. You'll probably need to trigger your backside ILB so he isn't just waiting to get swallowed by a climbing OL, but that will allow the RB to read off of him after staying inside off of the playside LB and run through the vacancy.

See above, which happened earlier in the game than the previous sequence. Yes, the interior gets destroyed, but on duo you are gonna need your edge to pick up the slack. He's being singled by a TE, while they're getting doubled by OL. You can't afford to have to cover the end's weaknesses up if you want to stop this play without loading the box. As we went over, loading the box has serious consequences, so you don't want to have to do that. Overall, the Bengals' interior has gotten so much better in run defense this season, despite the clip above, but physical TEs will give this unit problems. Kraft shoved the Bengals' ends into their lockers over and over and over.

Kraft even injured Hendrickson on an explosive, but perfectly clean and legal chip to put an exclamation point on an afternoon of bullying. This group of defensive ends, without Stewart, assuming he is what we think he is as a block-shedder, people-pusher, and run defender, is too soft for run games like Green Bay, and too soft for tight ends like Kraft.

The Bengals face Pat Freiermuth and Darnell Washington on Thursday night.

Published
Max Toscano
MAX TOSCANO

Max Toscano breaks down football strategy. Prior to joining Bengals On SI, he interned with the coaching staff at the University of Connecticut, assisting the defensive staff in opponent scouting as well as assisting the Head Coach and GM with analytics on gameday. Max's areas of specific expertise include Quarterbacks and Tight Ends, including also hosting a publication dedicated to the tight end position. He also writes for "And The Valley Shook" on SB Nation.

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