The Bengals are *ALMOST* completely healthy! - video Dailymotion

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John Sheeran discusses the Cincinnati Bengals and the health of the team heading into training camp!

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00:00The Bengals are about to begin training camp later this week, and virtually the entire roster

00:03is able to practice. But not everyone has a clean bill of health. So in this video,

00:07I'll explain who's injured, who's on an injury list, and why some of their recent

00:11roster moves make a lot more sense. Hi again, Bengals fans. John Sheeran of

00:18A to Z Sports Cincinnati here. And thankfully, mercifully, Bengals training camp is finally

00:23here. For now, as training camp is beginning, I want to just kind of reestablish where things are

00:29with the current health of the team. As of right now, there are only two players on the roster who

00:33are unable to practice. That's tight end Eric All Jr. and rookie center Seth McLaughlin. All ended up

00:38on the physically unable to perform list due to the torn ACL that he suffered in week nine of last

00:42season. It was actually the same ACL that he originally tore during his final season in college

00:47at Iowa back in 2023. So All is not going to be playing football until at least 2026. As for

00:53McLaughlin, he also suffered an injury last football season when he was still at the Ohio State

00:57University. He suffered a torn Achilles, and he's not quite ready to practice yet for the Bengals.

01:01And because he suffered that injury before he was in the NFL, that's technically classified as a

01:05non-football injury, hence the NFI list. Now, both of these players are on the active versions of these

01:10lists. So technically, they're both able to be activated at some point. But obviously, with all

01:14not expected to play until 2026, that's not going to happen. But for McLaughlin, it's just a matter of

01:19when he's able to be fully cleared to practice. And with those two names being the only ones on any

01:23injury list right now, that means that the entire rest of the Bengals' training camp roster is able

01:27to practice with the team when training camp begins. Obviously, not everyone will practice

01:31if certain contract issues aren't resolved, but that's beside the point. The Bengals are in a very

01:34good spot injury-wise, but there are still a handful of names that we need to monitor as camp begins.

01:39For starters, there's defensive tackle BJ Hill, who was dealing with a foot injury at the beginning

01:43of the offseason workout program. He didn't really participate in the May portion of practices,

01:47but he was on the field in June. And then there's quarterback Dax Hill, who suffered a torn ACL

01:51in week five of last season. Obviously, he wasn't ready to practice when the offseason program began

01:55in May, but that is about to change. Zach Taylor said that both of the Hills are going to be ready

02:00to practice when training camp begins, but they're both going to be limited for precautionary purposes.

02:04And it's not necessarily the best case scenario, because you would want anyone to be able to go

02:08100% once training camp begins, but it's much better than having both of them be on the pup list

02:13when training camp begins, and you don't know how long they're going to be there.

02:15In this clarification, specifically for BJ Hill, I think it adds context to some of the other

02:19roster moves that the team made over the weekend. The team ended up signing four players on Sunday,

02:24including two defensive tackles and former first-round pick Taven Bryan and former third-round

02:28pick McTelvin Aguil. And they also signed a center in Andrew Ryan, who's going to be taking essentially

02:33the role of McLaughlin until McLaughlin returns. But the arrivals of both defensive tackles make a lot

02:37more sense knowing that Hill is going to be essentially on a pitch count for the beginning of

02:40training camp. And honestly, they should not rush Hill back at all over these next six weeks. Yes,

02:45you can play him a little bit in the preseason if he's able to do so, but making sure that he's

02:49100% healthy by the time week one rolls around, specifically for this position group that lacks

02:54a lot of high-end talent, that's important. It'll also give Bryan and Guillem a lot of

02:58opportunities in practice and in the preseason to put out some quality tapes so if they don't

03:02stick around in Cincinnati, they can catch on somewhere else. But the Bengals all of a sudden

03:05have nine defensive tackles on their roster right now, and really eight of them are healthy and ready

03:09to go. And that feels like a direct and frankly a warranted reaction to what happened to the position

03:14group this time last year when you had a plethora of defensive tackle injuries leading up to the

03:18regular season, including both rookies at the time and McKinley Jackson and Chris Jenkins Jr.

03:22Not having depth there really hurt the Bengals defense at the beginning part of last season,

03:27and frankly, it wasn't a problem that got any better as the season went on. Now,

03:30I'm not here to say that Bryan or a game are going to make the roster. Frankly,

03:33I would bet against it, but their presence is going to be valuable at least in August.

03:37And perhaps the most assuring news of all is that the fourth player that they signed on Sunday,

03:41of course, I'm talking about former Bearcats quarterback Desmond Ritter. He was signed here not to

03:45replace anyone who was injured in the quarterback room. He was just signed to take the place of

03:49Logan Woodside. And I'm not going to say out loud why that's good news. I think you can already

03:53assume. But there you have it. The Bengals are virtually 100% healthy as training camp begins.

03:58Obviously, that won't be the case once training camp ramps up and they put the pads on and things

04:02get more physical and just the wear and tear of training camp starts to wear on these guys.

04:06But for now, there's nothing too concerning in terms of injuries. There's just a couple names that

04:09they need to monitor and we will be monitoring them as well right here on A to Z Sports Cincinnati.

The Bengals are ALMOST completely healthy!

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