Irwin Hate...

[*ochocincos*]

I see some saying Irwin needs to be a backup...
That's literally what he is.

Irwin is in because Higgins is out.

I'm sure the team knows that Burton is more dynamic than Irwin, but I would assume they don't think Burton is far enough along to take that many offensive snaps.

Charlie Jones is basically a nonfactor on offense, and it potentially might be because they want to make sure he's ready for PR.

Irwin is, by definition, WR4. He's backing up Higgins.
Burton WR5 while he continues to grow. I do think we'll see Burton's offensive snap counts continue to grow throughout the year though.

I do wanna redact what I said before that Irwin will go back to backup and play ST once Higgins is back.
I thought Irwin played more ST, but it turns out he's not played more than 22 ST snaps in a season during his whole career.
In that case, I would be completely ok finding a different veteran WR to replace him that we would have more confidence in.
There aren't that many guys out there I'd really think would be HUGE upgrades that could play both outside and inside, but there are guys who would probably be at least slight upgrades.
https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/free-agents/_/year/2024/status/available/position/wr/sort/contract_value

Note though that the Bengals will not spend much of anything to get another guy because that would eat into what they could pay other guys or carry over into next year. It would be $2 mill or less.