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

2. Clayton Fejedelem

Fejedelem has been around the team longer than Tupou, but he isn’t exactly someone who has gotten gobs of opportunities yet, either. Though longtime Bengal Reggie Nelson left before the 2016 season, there just haven’t been many snaps to go to Fejedelem or others because of George Iloka and Shawn Williams. Those two have been a positive combination for Cincinnati the past year and a half, and neither has made a habit of missing games.

Williams did actually miss the game against Tennessee however, and that left the door open for Fejedelem to be heavily involved. With more snaps available, the young safety managed to be on the field for a career-high 56 plays. His overall performance on those plays won’t blow anyone away, but he did manage to stay pretty well involved in the game. He finished the contest with six tackles and a pass knockdown, putting his box score stats right there with Iloka (seven tackles, one pass knockdown).

Regardless of how good or bad his performance was in your eyes, Fejedelem probably won’t be starting much longer this season, if at all. Williams has shown a propensity to fight back quickly from injuries this year, and I wouldn’t be all that surprised if a week off gives his hamstring enough rest for him to try pushing through and playing. Once Williams is back, Fejedelem will once again be relegated to special teams and garbage time duty.

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That sort of injury is always tricky, though; rarely is a week enough to actually let a player perform well enough to risk further damaging themselves. If Cincinnati is smart about the situation, they should just make Williams rest up.

I’ll be frank: at 3-6, this team isn’t making the playoffs. With that in mind, going forward with an unnecessary risk like having Williams play through a hamstring injury and potentially making it worse (including possibly tearing it) when their postseason hopes are already dead would be recklessly foolish.

Instead, seeing what else a young defender like Fejedelem can offer would be the good long-term move. Denver is not a good passing team (No. 27 in Pass Offense DVOA), but they do have a dynamic receiving duo in Demaryius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders that can make big plays even with abysmal quarterbacking.

Seeing how Fejedelem can respond in a game against proven talents like them is a worthwhile investment of their time. If he can’t hold up, finding out now rather than in a situation where a loss would actually be detrimental to their hopes (rather than just a fact of the matter at this point) is the smart move.

If he can hold up though, the sooner you know, the better it is for your team’s ability to build and plan with that idea in mind.