Cincinnati Bengals Announce Running Back Signing Ahead of 2026 NFL Combine

CINCINNATI — The Bengals announced two signings on Friday, and one of them is a fresh one. Running back Kendall Milton is returning to the team on a one-year contract, while the team also made Jalen Davis' new extension official.

Milton has never been signed to the official roster until now, after joining the practice squad in 2024.

The Georgia product has played in three career games for the Bengals as a practice squad elevation, recording two rushing attempts for two yards. His practice squad contract for the 2025 season expired on Jan. 12, and he is now back with the team ahead of free agency next month.

It's a massive march for director of player personnel, Duke Tobin, and the rest of the Bengals front office.

"You need your closers, and you need your aces when it comes down to the fourth quarter, and you need a stop," Tobin said last month about what Cincinnati is missing most. "But yeah, stopping the run, I was proud of the group after the bye for figuring out, grinding through, and making the improvements necessary to give us chances. It would be a different story if I didn’t see young players progressing and I didn’t see a progression of understanding, knowledge, and execution of our defense. It would be a different story. Believe me, it would be a big different story in my mind. But the reason that it’s not is that I see growth.

"I see growth in a 24-year-old Myles Murphy and young corners who have taken the jump, and Jordan Battle, who has taken the jump. The one thing we really need is we need those guys or somebody else to take on a leadership role and demand the accountability and demand the execution. We need more leadership. We have tons of leadership on the offensive side of the ball. We need somebody, multiple people, to step up and lead that group from within our team. And it could come from the outside, and it could come from the inside. We can get improvement from both of those areas. We can get improvement and play from the inside, which I see happening, and we can get improvement from the outside, be it the draft or free agency or however we want to attack it."

Tobin and the rest of the Bengals leadership will be at next week's NFL Combine.

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