Zac Taylor Updates Bengals Injuries, Latest Preseason Starter Plan Ahead of Bears Joint Practice

Zac Taylor and the Bengals are getting ready for today's joint practice with the Chicago Bears ahead of Saturday's preseason battle against the same team inside Paycor Stadium.

Names like Dax Hill, Bryan Cook, and Shemar Stewart have all missed every practice in the past 10 days, and we got an update on where they stand.

Stewart is still going to be out for the foreseeable future, while the team hopes to get back its secondary pieces soon. Hill and Cook were active on the rehab field on Tuesday morning but there is no set timeline for the trio.

"They're progressing. They started running a little bit more on the side of the rehab field, so I won't put a timeline on it. But encouraged by the progress that they're making," Taylor said about Hill and Cook before touching on Stewart later. "So again, I think everything's been encouraging for the guys. They got hurt early in camp for us. There's been no setbacks or anything. So again, I'll stay away from the timelines. But been encouraged by everything I've seen from all those guys so far."

Expanding to the whole starting lineup, Taylor noted no starters will play in Saturday's action as we sit a little over three weeks away from the start of the regular season.

The back end of the roster will get all the snaps on Saturday. Marking plenty of chances to show why they should be one of the 53 names taken into the regular season.

"Yeah. I'm planning on sitting out the starters really no matter how practice goes today," Taylor said. "So yeah, the twos will get a lot of reps today, not as many as the ones, and then they will get to play on Saturday."

Today, the starters get a game-like feel, something exciting for both sides.

“The competition goes up. The intensity goes up," Bears head coach Ben Johnson said this morning. "You can’t help but when you got a new face across from you, you want to go out there and make sure your identity and everything you’re about shows up on tape.”

Cincinnati is off on Friday before battling the Bears in the second 2026 preseason game on Saturday at 7 p.m. ET.

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