Bengals Announce Handful of Captain Selections Ahead of 2026 Season

The Bengals announced the 2026 captains on Monday afternoon.

The team has seven captains on the docket, with three on offense, three on defense, and Evan McPherson as the special teams captain.

The names rolled out in this order: Ted Karras, Dexter Lawrence, Joe Burrow, Ja'Marr Chase, DJ Turner, Bryan Cook and McPherson.

"Feels good," Lawrence said after practice to The Enquirer's Kelsey Conway and others. "Obviously, a big role, big responsibilities. I appreciate the guys over here voting for me. I just come and do my job and play football and encourage sometimes, hold accountable sometimes. Just little things like that. Build relationships with everybody in the room, in the locker room. So it feels good. I think a lot of guys on this team can be leaders, but just to have the honor of the seven guys is pretty cool."

Zac Taylor appeared to tell the team the news in a big huddle ahead of Monday's practice and will comment on the decisions during his media availability on Monday afternoon.

The offensive captains are the same, while McPherson is now a two-time captain and the other two free agent additions get some love. Burrow is on his seventh-straight season in this group, while Karras is on his fifth.

Taylor is ready to attack this season with his new-look group.

"I think we put in really good work," Taylor said last week. "I feel good about that part of it. That won't mean anything beyond this first game. We've got to go out there and have a great plan, and we got to understand the plan, and we got to be able to execute it. We got to be able to put guys in positions to make the plays, because nobody's going to care after this first game how training camp went. We just got to put ourselves in position to win. So, I feel like we covered a lot of the things that we set out to cover. So we checked those boxes.

"Now, are we putting our guys in a position to go execute it, so that we can start 1-0? That's the biggest thing, and then capitalize on this heat. We got heat this week. I expect it's going to be hot Sunday at one when we play the game. I just imagine they're practicing in a lot of heat. So this is great for me as head coach: it's as hot as it is today and tomorrow and Thursday, and let's get out there and get some work."

Cincinnati kicks off the season at 1 p.m. ET on Sunday against Tampa Bay.

Our 2026 captains. pic.twitter.com/N4bIn54VvI
— Cincinnati Bengals (@Bengals) September 7, 2026

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