How Cincinnati Bengals' Signing of CB Ja'Sir Taylor Alters Draft Needs

The Cincinnati Bengals added some depth at cornerback Thursday with the signing of former New York Jet Ja’Sir Taylor.

A sixth-round pick of the Los Angeles Chargers in 2022, Taylor has appeared in 65 of a possible 68 games with 12 starts.

The Chargers traded Taylor to the Jets at the deadline last year for a 2028 seventh-round pick.

Primarily a special teams player, Taylor logged 137 defensive snaps in 2025. Of those, 41 were in the slot while 72 were as a wide corner.

His most productive season came in 2023 when he played 532 defensive snaps, with 436 of them coming in the slot.

Having not signed a cornerback in free agency until today, the Bengals’ depth chart at veteran Jalen Davis as their starter at nickel corner.

Taylor will provide some competition there, but his addition shouldn’t change the urgency to add another corner in the draft.

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Along with defensive tackle, cornerback is one of the two most likely positions to be addressed early in this month’s draft.

Taylor addressed the need at the position Tuesday at the NFL League Meetings in Phoenix.

“Whether it’s a veteran guy lingering out there, whether it’s at some point in the draft, unknown when that will be, but I do feel like we certainly have talked and feel comfortable with the direction we’ll head there, and we’ll see how it shapes out over the next month and a half,” he said, via The Athletic’s Paul Dehner Jr.

Dax Hill and DJ Turner II are slotted as the starting outside corners, and both are eligible for extensions. If the Bengals aren't optimistic about signing both to extensions, drafting an elite corner in the first round makes sense for both depth in 2026 and a succession plan into the future.

Taylor didn't rule out the idea of moving Hill back inside to nickel corner if the Bengals target one of the top corners in the draft in the first round. But he said that's something they will focus on months from now.

He also said that the team wasn't interested in signing a veteran for the sake of adding experience to the room because he feels Hill and Turner have played enough that it doesn't feel like a young cornerback room.

“With Dax and DJ, it doesn’t feel young anymore,” Taylor said. “Those guys have played a lot of football for us, and so I don’t look at it as a young room anymore. Jalen Davis, he’s always been a part of that room, and I thought he played really well for us at nickel last year when he got his opportunity. So I don’t really see that as a young room.

“I know that there’s veteran corners that have played a lot longer, that have played in the league, but I feel like with the experience those guys have gotten, they’ve had great moments, they’ve had tough moments, and they’ve learned from that, and I got a lot of confidence in those guys.”

Ja’Sir (juh-SEAR) Taylor has 65 career tackles with 15 passes defended (one of which came in 2024 against Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow) and one interception.

The Bengals no doubt have plenty of notes on Taylor given that he entered the league in 2022, the year they invested heavily in the secondary by taking Dax Hill and Cam Taylor-Britt with their first two picks in the draft before adding Tycen Anderson in the fifth.

Taylor has played 1,163 special teams snaps in his career, which is another area the Bengals are looking for help after Anderson left for Denver in free agency.

Taylor has extensive experience on the kick coverage, kick return, punt coverage and punt return units.

The Wake Forest product turned 27 in January.

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