Could this free agent guard speak his Cincinnati Bengals roster spot into existence?

AtoZ Sports

John Sheeran discusses free agent guard Dalton Risner's comments about wanting to join the Cincinnati Bengals.

Transcript

00:00There is a free agent who's making it very clear that the Cincinnati Bengals are one of his

00:04preferred destinations, and in this video, I'll explain what would need to happen for the Bengals

00:08to sign. Hi again, Bengals fans. John Sheeran of A to Z Sports Cincinnati here, and the best thing

00:16that the Bengals can hear from other free agents around the league is that they want to play for

00:21the Bengals. We should not forget anytime soon that the largest external free agent contract

00:25that the Bengals have ever offered and then signed belongs to Orlando Brown Jr., and the entire reason

00:31as to why that four-year, $64 million deal came to place in the first place is because Orlando Brown

00:37Jr. and his team reached out to the Bengals about potentially linking up in free agency. The Bengals

00:42entered free agency back in 2023 thinking that they didn't have a chance in the world to sign

00:47Brown. They thought that he was going to get a contract either from the Kansas City Chiefs or

00:51any other team interested in signing him for a lot larger than they would be willing to offer him.

00:55But when Brown realized that his market wasn't anything remotely close to what he wanted it to

00:59be, he reached out to the Bengals as his preferred destination to just join a team that was obviously

01:04on the rise and make the playoffs and could compete against this former team of the Chiefs. And that is

01:09exactly how that all happened. Brown reached out first. The Bengals said, hey, if you want to do this,

01:13we'll offer you this contract. And Brown's like, yeah, I'll take it. Very rarely does free agency

01:16actually work like that, especially in the early days of free agency. But as the days turned to weeks

01:21and the weeks turned to months, that is kind of how it ends up going. And that is what we're

01:25starting to see from free agent guard Dalton Reisner. Now, a lot of Bengals fans know who

01:29Dalton Reisner is. He's been a starting guard ever since he entered the NFL as a second round pick back

01:33in 2019. And he's just been a solid starting pass protecting guard. And the Bengals still need

01:38another player like that to fill in one of the guard spots to just make sure that Joe Burrell's pocket is

01:42firm. Earlier this month, Reisner, who's very active on TikTok, he commented on a post that

01:47described how the Bengals need to sign him in free agency. And he responded saying, I would love to

01:52be a Bengal. And then about two weeks later, he went live on TikTok and someone asked him if he's

01:57on a team yet. And he said, no, I'm not on a team yet, but I have been talking to some other teams.

02:02And he was basically asking, who do you think I'm going to join? Am I going to join the Minnesota

02:05Vikings, which is the team he's played for the past two years, the Denver Broncos, which is the team

02:09that drafted him. And he played there the first three or four years of his career or the Cincinnati

02:13Bengals, who he has never played for. And when he mentioned the Bengals for a second time this month,

02:17that sparked a lot of speculation as to whether or not the Bengals have reached out to him,

02:21if there's some type of a deal in place in case the draft doesn't go the way that the Bengals want.

02:25Now, NFL insider Malik Wright, who originally posted the video describing how the Bengals

02:28need to sign Reisner, he reached out to Reisner and he clarified the Bengals have not reached out

02:33to him at all. So all this noise between the Bengals and Reisner, that is coming from Reisner

02:37himself. Now, the fact that the Bengals haven't reached out to Reisner isn't very surprising.

02:40They already signed Lucas Patrick a month ago in free agency and all their focus is on the draft

02:45right now. But just like Orlando Brown Jr. did two years ago, it can be Reisner who can start up

02:50this sort of mutual interest here. But mutual interest is not a guaranteed thing here. Just

02:53because Reisner wants to join the Bengals doesn't mean that the Bengals want Reisner on their team.

02:58And I say this because the Bengals have a coach on their staff that has worked with Reisner for the

03:03majority of his career already. Past game coordinator Justin Moscati, who was hired by the

03:06Bengals last year in 2024, he was hired by the Broncos in 2019, the same year that they drafted Reisner.

03:12He was an offensive quality control coach for the Broncos, and then he left to become the assistant

03:15offensive line coach for the Vikings a year before Reisner joined that team. Four of Reisner's first

03:20five years in the NFL featured Ruscatty on his coaching staff. If anyone in Cincinnati knows who

03:25Reisner is, it's Justin Ruscatty. And the fact that Reisner was a free agent this time last year

03:29and ended up re-signing with the Vikings instead of joining the Bengals, who clearly needed a guard

03:33at the time, I think that says something. But again, the draft is the biggest variable here,

03:37and it's the reason why Reisner has not signed with the team yet. Now, this is normally what Reisner does

03:42in the offseason. He didn't join the Vikings originally until the middle of the 2023 season,

03:46and he didn't resign with them until last year in May. He likes to wait things out. He likes to see

03:50if there's an opportunity for him to start immediately with a good team. And if the draft

03:54unfolds in a certain way where the Bengals don't find a starting guard with one of their first couple

03:58picks, and they still need a clear, solid answer at one of those spots, Reisner could be the guy that

04:03they call. And they know that Reisner would be interested in playing with them because he literally

04:07admitted it twice. So if you do see Reisner connected to the Bengals at this time, just know that

04:11right now is just a one-way street. But it can be a two-way street if the draft doesn't fold a

04:16certain way. And speaking of the draft, it is getting closer and closer. We are less than a

04:19week away from the first round starting, and we will cover all of that next week right here

04:23on A to Z Sports Cincinnati.

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