Cincinnati Bengals: Players to watch vs. Broncos in Week 11

Quick insights on a few important Cincinnati Bengals to watch in the team’s Week 11 matchup with the Denver Broncos.

Week 10 saw Cincinnati almost pull off a surprise upset of the Tennessee Titans. Alas, their efforts fell as short as that failed Hail Mary attempt by Andy Dalton. At 3-6, Cincinnati is now essentially out of the playoffs with nearly half of their season remaining.

That doesn’t mean they won’t keep trying to win games, of course — nor should it. Among the many reasons: they’ll be using their remaining games to help evaluate the players on their roster and determine who may be worth keeping and trying to build with for their future (hopefully more successful) roster.

With that in mind, here are a few guys who will be worth watching not only for how they will do this week, but what their role and subsequent performance could mean for their future with this team. We begin in the middle of the defense, with a fresh-faced young man who’s so new to getting snaps there wasn’t even a picture of him in our image database.

3. Josh Tupou

Tupou entered the league with this year’s draft class, but his skill set worked against him in the process. Due to his expected limitations, he wasn’t drafted. That’s a difficult realization, but it’s hardly a death knell to a career. Undrafted free agents sign on in droves to every team in the league, and there are success stories practically every year. Undrafted free agents may even have an advantage over late-round draftees: unlike their drafted brethren, these guys actually have a say in what team is granted their services.

For Tupou, the situation in Cincinnati was probably one of the more ideal opportunities out there. Here he would get to be part of a team that, though they did miss the 2016 playoffs, has been one of the more consistently successful franchises in the 2010s.

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It’s also a team that was beginning to embark on a major remodel of their defensive line. Though Geno Atkins and Carlos Dunlap are high level players, the rest of the group had become old and unproductive. Hence, guys like Domata Peko were allowed to leave in free agency and numerous draft picks were used on defensive line talent.

Tupou probably wasn’t going to be expected to play at all this year if things worked as planned, but at 3-6 either the Cincinnati plan for 2017 hasn’t worked or it is wrong. Even still, it took an injury to one of the veterans still in place (Pat Sims) to get Tupou on the field at all.

That was this past week against Tennessee. Tupou got to see the first action of his career, picking up 19 snaps in the game. He wasn’t exceptional in his time on the field, but he was playable in the facets that were expected of him pre-draft. Pro Football Focus Edge rated him 67.8 (0-100 grading scale) for the game, but he was notably better against the run (71.3) than as a pass rusher (51.4).

If Sims is unable to go again this week, Tupou should see similar usage against Denver. The Broncos are far from stalwarts on offense (No. 25 in Football Outsiders’ Offensive DVOA), but when they found something that works it has been due to the success of and balance provided by their running game (No. 18 in Run Offense DVOA).

Tupou may be limited as a defender, but his size (6-3, 325 pounds) lets him be a sizeable roadblock to place in the way of the opposition; that’s a decent starting point for a useful player. If he can prove in this game and others this year that he has even more to offer, he could earn himself an important rotation spot on the defensive line here beyond 2017.