Cincinnati Bengals: Big takeaways from Preseason Week 2

Could They Keep Four RBs?

2017 saw Cincinnati take a little-used approach to stocking talent on their roster entering the year by keeping seven receivers on the opening 53-man roster. That didn’t necessarily work out (particularly because of the abysmally awful blocking “talent” their offensive line was built with), but the basic idea behind the decision (i.e. stock up with as much of their available talent as possible) isn’t necessarily bad.

Though they likely won’t be going in that direction again at wide receiver, we may see them hold onto a surprisingly high number elsewhere on the offense yet again. This time, however, it could be at running back.

This may not make sense at first, of course. Joe Mixon is undeniably their plan at lead back, and he has plenty of talent as a multi-faceted option to build with in the backfield. Alongside him, Giovani Bernard should continue to be a really good receiving back to dump the ball off to and hit on short routes. The expected snaps for anyone beyond them will be extremely limited, should things go as planned.

That’s half of the issue, though: things rarely go as planned. At some point, somebody is going to get hurt somewhere, and Cincinnati while nobody past those two could plausibly be expected to match the output Mixon and/or Bernard would create in their roles, the team would be remiss to not have a respectable plan in place should the worst come to pass and one (or both) get knocked out of action for any amount of time.

Just like the wide receiver position last season, Cincinnati has a large collection of talent to sort through while deciding how to build up their runner depth. This preseason game against Dallas may have given us more questions than answers, however.

Brian Hill seems like a good bet for the No. 3 role (four touches, 59 yards, one touchdown against Dallas), but he only has 19 regular season snaps to his name — it guarantees him nothing. Mark Walton hasn’t shown it in the preseason (negative-nine rushing yards against Dallas), but he was a talent worth a mid-round draft pick this year and can’t be counted out so soon.

Tra Carson seems like an afterthought, but has gotten six carries for 24 yards in each preseason game so far, even adding a touchdown run against Dallas. Going just off production, it’s hard to say any runner has been more consistently effective for Cincinnati so far this August.

With all these talented names (not even mentioning longshots like Jarveon Williams or Quinton Flowers, who could also make a case for themselves in the coming weeks), it’ll be tough for Cincinnati to decide who is most worth a place among the final 53.

Odds are, none of the Hill/Walton/Carson trio will do anything which can completely secure their fate in either direction before the final day of cuts. The talent between them is enough to force Cincinnati’s hand though; picking two of them to keep would surely be easier than two to release, especially with the team’s depth and talent issues elsewhere on the roster in a much better state than we saw them entering the 2017 season.