Cincinnati Bengals Open Training Camp With a Rebuilt Defense on Trial and B.J. Hill on PUP

The Cincinnati Bengals spent an entire offseason tearing out and rebuilding the defense that wrecked their 2025 season, and this week the bill finally comes due. Rookies reported to Paycor Stadium on July 25, veterans check in July 28, and the first practice of camp goes off Wednesday, July 29. The latest Cincinnati Bengals news even came with a wrinkle before anyone stretched a hamstring: veteran defensive tackle B.J. Hill, one of the few dependable pieces of last year's unit, opened camp on the physically unable to perform list. For a team that shipped a top-10 pick out the door to fix this defense, the margin for slow starts is officially gone.

Hill on PUP Before a Single Practice

Friday's transaction wire delivered the first genuine Bengals news of camp week. Hill landed on the active/PUP list, and the team offered no explanation for why — no injury designation, no timeline, nothing. That is mildly strange for a player who logged all 17 games in 2025, playing 61 percent of the defensive snaps while piling up 66 tackles, nine quarterback hits and four sacks on a unit that gave him very little help. Tight end Josh Kattus went on the active/non-football injury list in the same batch of moves, a routine designation for a young player at the bottom of a crowded position group but one more body unavailable when practice opens.

The active versions of both lists are the forgiving ones: Hill can come off the moment doctors clear him, and nobody in Cincinnati is treating this as a crisis yet. The date that matters is August 30. If Hill is still not cleared when rosters are finalized, he would shift to reserve/PUP and sit out at least the first four games. Given how much the Bengals just invested in the interior of that line, they would clearly prefer their most experienced returning tackle be part of the rotation rather than a spectator in September.

The Most Expensive Defensive Makeover in Franchise History

About that investment. After finishing 30th in points allowed and 31st in yards in 2025, Cincinnati did something the franchise almost never does: it spent aggressively, and it spent big. The headliner was the April blockbuster that sent the No. 10 overall pick to the Giants for Dexter Lawrence, the three-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle, who arrived with a one-year, $28 million extension attached. Before that, the front office signed former Washington stalwart Jonathan Allen on a two-year, $26 million deal, added edge rusher Boye Mafe from Seattle, and remade the back end with safeties Bryan Cook and Kyle Dugger.

The counterweight to all of it: Trey Hendrickson is gone, and not just gone — he signed a four-year, $112 million contract with the Ravens after Cincinnati declined to franchise-tag him. The team's best pass rusher of the past half-decade now plays for the rival the Bengals host on New Year's Eve. That decision will be re-litigated every time Cincinnati's new-look edge group fails to get home, which is exactly why the next six weeks of practices matter so much for the young rushers asked to replace him.

Camp Battles Worth Your Attention

The competition board is unusually crowded for a roster this settled on offense. The battles to track once pads come on:

• Edge rusher: Mafe is penciled in as the lead dog, but 2025 first-rounder Shemar Stewart — who managed one sack in eight injury-shortened rookie games — competes with Myles Murphy and Cashius Howell for the rest of the snaps. This is the make-or-break summer for the Stewart pick.
• Safety: Cook has one job locked down; Jordan Battle and Dugger are fighting over the spot next to him.
• Nickel: Jalen Davis enters as the favorite, with Ja'Sir Taylor and Bralyn Lux pushing hard enough that all three could see early-season work.
• Third receiver: Andrei Iosivas is the incumbent behind Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, but a drop-plagued 2025 opened the door for Colbie Young and Charlie Jones.
• Tight end: Mike Gesicki tops the depth chart, with Drew Sample, Tanner Hudson, Erick All Jr. and rookie Jack Endries behind him. All is widely viewed as the highest-upside player in the room if his health cooperates.

How 2025 Set All of This in Motion

Context matters here, because last season was as bleak as it gets in the Joe Burrow era. The Bengals finished 6-11, their worst record since 2020 and a third straight year outside the playoffs. Burrow tore up his toe in Week 2, missed nine games, and didn't return until late November; Cincinnati went 1-8 without him. When he played, he was still emphatically himself — 1,809 yards, 17 touchdowns and five interceptions across eight games, with efficiency numbers right in line with his 2024 season. The problem was everything around him on the other side of the ball, where the defense coughed up leads to Green Bay, Chicago and New England and closed the year losing to Cleveland on a walk-off field goal.

Owner Mike Brown responded by keeping head coach Zac Taylor and personnel chief Duke Tobin, insisting they had proven they can build teams that compete for championships. Fair enough — but Taylor is now the only AFC North head coach who kept his job this offseason, and the front office just handed him the most talented defensive roster he has had in years. Nobody around the league is confused about what that means. A healthy Burrow plus a functional defense is the whole formula, and if it doesn't produce a playoff berth, the questions about Taylor get much louder than they were in January.

What's on the Calendar

Camp itself is fan-friendly this year. Six practices are open to the public at the Kettering Health Practice Fields — July 29, July 30, August 3, August 4 and August 16 — plus a Friday night practice inside Paycor Stadium on August 7, with free tickets available through the team app. Season ticket members get four additional sessions on August 1, 6, 9 and 15. The preseason slate follows quickly:

• Thursday, August 13 — vs. Detroit Lions, 7 p.m.
• Saturday, August 22 — vs. Chicago Bears, 7 p.m.
• Friday, August 28 — at Philadelphia Eagles, 8 p.m., the lone nationally televised tune-up

Then the real thing: the Bengals open at home against Tampa Bay, their third straight orange-clad Week 1 at Paycor, kicking off a stretch of seven consecutive 1 p.m. starts. The schedule quirks are genuinely odd — no primetime game until the Steelers visit in Week 10, Cincinnati's longest wait for a night game since 2015, plus a Week 9 trip to Madrid to face the Falcons and that New Year's Eve date with Hendrickson and the Ravens in Week 17.

The Week Ahead in Cincinnati

The next seven days of Cincinnati Bengals news will tell us plenty. Veterans arrive Monday, practice opens Wednesday, and by the weekend we should know whether Hill's PUP stay is a precaution or a problem, whether Stewart looks like a different player in year two, and how quickly Lawrence and Allen mesh in the middle of Al Golden's defense. The offense needs no introductions — Burrow, Chase and Higgins remain as good a trio as exists in football. What this franchise has never managed in the Burrow era is pairing that offense with a defense that can hold a lead in December. The organization finally paid up to find out. Starting Wednesday in the July heat, we get our first look at what all that money bought.