Ranking all players on the roster prior to 2025 off season

[CJD]

I was curious how people would rank the players on this team if you just had to list them from best to worst player on the team.

I checked the Bengals ESPN roster page, and there are currently 78 players listed either on the roster or on the IR. So I downloaded the list and just...started ranking them.

This is what I came up with:

Ranking Name
1 Joe Burrow
2 Ja'Marr Chase
3 Trey Hendrickson
4 Tee Higgins
5 Orlando Brown Jr.
6 Chase Brown
7 Ted Karras
8 Amarius Mims
9 Logan Wilson
10 Mike Gesicki
11 Andrei Iosivas
12 Mike Hilton
13 Germaine Pratt
14 B.J. Hill
15 Jordan Battle
16 Jake Browning
17 Josh Newton
18 Myles Murphy
19 Joseph Ossai
20 Cody Ford
21 Erick All Jr.
22 Dax Hill
23 DJ Turner II
24 Cam Taylor-Britt
25 Evan McPherson
26 Khalil Herbert
27 Drew Sample
28 McKinnley Jackson
29 DJ Ivey
30 Charlie Jones
31 Kris Jenkins Jr.
32 Ryan Rehko
33 Cal Adomitis
34 Tanner Hudson
35 Cam Grandy
36 Cam Sample
37 Akeem Davis-Gaither
38 Jay Tufele
39 Marco Wilson
40 Shaka Heyward
41 Maema Njongmeta
42 Cedric Johnson
43 Geno Stone
44 Tycen Anderson
45 Daijahn Anthony
46 Vonn Bell
47 Devin Cochran
48 Isaiah Williams
49 Zack Moss
50 Trayveon Williams
51 Jermaine Burton
52 Sam Hubbard
53 Sheldon Rankins
54 Cordell Volson
55 Alex Cappa


56 Gary Brightwell
57 Kendall Milton
58 Cole Burgess
59 Kendric Pryor
60 Tanner McLachlan
61 Matt Lee
62 Tashawn Manning
63 Andrew Coker
64 Andrew Stueber
65 Raymond Johnson III
66 Isaiah Thomas
67 Craig Young
68 Micah Abraham
69 Nate Brooks
70 PJ Jules
71 Jaylen Key
72 Cade Yor
73 Chris Evans
74 Jaxson Kirkland
75 Trent Brown
76 D'Ante Smith
77 Joe Bachie
78 Lance Robinson


There's a gap between 55 and 56 because, below that point, I just didn't have enough information on the players to know how good they actually are. Those rankings 56 to 78 are not in order. They're just kind of clustered together as "I don't know," or, in Trent Brown's case, "I don't think it matters" because I don't think there's any way he stays with us and his career may actually be over. We'll see.

And, truth be told, I struggled around the 26 to 42 range. A lot of back ups and reserve players that only got limited snaps. If you disagree with any placements in that range, just know it was largely just a tier of players more than meticulously thought out evaluations of each player. A lot of small sample sizes in there.

My general takeaways from making this list are four fold:

1. We'd be idiots to not re-sign Higgins. We have so little talent on this roster right now. He's our 4th best player and I don't think that's debatable. Show me another team in the history of the league who willingly let their 4th best player leave in free agency when there wasn't a significant schism between the team and the player or an extreme lack of resources due to poor cap management.

2. Just to re-iterate, man we need an injection of talent to this roster. When I was making the rankings, I started with ranking the 25 starters. Then I looked at the list and made gaps in the list where I expected reserve players to rank higher than starters either in potential or production. One of the places I put a gap was at 9, between Logan Wilson and Mike Gesicki. I just anticipated putting at least 2 or 3 players about Gesicki when all was said and done. But, as I ranked, I just...closed the gap because I realized there was no one on the roster that I valued higher than Gesicki other than the 9 players I initially ranked above him. Probably should re-sign him too, tbh :).

3. Last year's free agency was an abject disaster. We already knew this, but it was staring me right in the face as I was making this list. Another location that I put one of those gaps was above Geno Stone, because I was expecting him to fall into the bottom 5, but he (and Gesicki, though he may be looking for a big paycheck much like very TE that plays 1 season for Joe) were the only free agents that I would even consider keeping this upcoming season, depending on how our new DC feels about him. He seems to have found his stride late in the season. But Rankins, Brown (not really his fault, but he was a known injury risk), and Moss were all bad signings that I don't expect to be back in 2025. We really need to improve our process in free agency this year.

4. We undoubtedly had the worst guard duo in the NFL this past season. We have nowhere to go but up. I want both Volson and Cappa to be cut immediately. They were comfortably the worst players that got any kind of gameday snaps on the entire team.