The Bengals Defense Had a Lot To Fix, and the Most Important Piece Will Be on Display Sunday

The first big test to see just how improved the Cincinnati Bengals defense is after an offseason overhaul will come Sunday afternoon in the season opener against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

And yes, tackling will be center stage. And the pass rush. And communication.

It all works together to make or, as we saw over and over again in 2025, break a defense. And there have been hours of practice devoted to improving those facets.

But more than anything, the focus of the defense – and the entire team in general – has been on situational awareness.

“I bet if you asked Zac, he would say we have worked harder at situational football than at any time in his tenure here,” defensive coordinator Al Golden said. “Hopefully that pays dividends for us on all three levels. That’s what my mindset would be – how do I put our best players in position to do what they do best?”

Training camp was full of end-of-game situations pitting the offense against the defense. For instance, the second team defense would try to run the four-minute offense and drain the clock against the first team defense.

If it didn’t, then the first team offense would try to use the remaining time to get into position for field goal, as it did in one of the final practices when Joe Burrow found Dohnte Meyers for a long catch and run down to the 3-yard line.

There were a bunch of other standard, move-the-ball drills trying to get the players ready for specific game situations they weren’t going to get in the preseason games.

Exhibit 1 of the lack of situational awareness last year was Chicago’s game-winning drive after the Cincinnati offense had rallied from 14 points down with less than five minutes remaining only to lose 47-42.

After the Bengals took a 42-41 lead with 54 seconds remaining, Chicago quarterback Caleb Williams hit tight end Colston Loveland at the Cincinnati 37. Just getting the rookie on the ground would have left the Bears on the edge of field goal range with 20 seconds to go and the clock running.

But safety Jordan Battle went for the big hit, only to watch Loveland bounce off and run the ball into the end zone for a game-winning 58-yard touchdown.

COLSTON LOVELAND ARE YOU KIDDING?

📺: CBS pic.twitter.com/OMOzjsl6vC
— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) November 2, 2025

There were countless other examples last season. That’s why there were countless periods devoted to fixing the problem this summer.

When asked what he wants the defense’s identity to be this season, Golden went back to that issue.

“Is good in situations,” he said first before moving into improving the tackling, especially in the opening few games of the season when players are rusty from having not taken ball carriers to the ground in months.

“The thing I've already alluded to is Zac's done a good job of already preparing us for the situations, which is going to be really important,” Taylor said. “I think our priority has to be on just limiting mental errors and not giving plays away. I think that's really important in an opener.

“Players first, then plays,” he added. “I think that’s really important — put our best players in position to do what they do best, and trust that we can execute under duress, regardless of the circumstance.”

Tampa Bay has made the playoffs in five of the last six years, with 2025 being the outlier even though they tied for first in the division but lost out to the Carolina Panthers via the tiebreaker.

Perennial playoff teams know how to handle situational football, so Taylor knows the Bengals ability – on inability – will be on display Sunday.

“Tampa’s a really good team to start off, so all those details situationally, fundamentally, ball security, they're all going to show up in the box score at the end of the game,” he said. “When you look at who won, who lost, usually you're going to be able to point early in the season to some of those statistics, and they'll tell the tale for you.”

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