Cincinnati Bengals: Final 53-man roster cut predictions for 2018

Wide Receivers

* = starters; + = make roster

Devontae Boyd, *Tyler Boyd, Cody Core, +Alex Erickson, *A.J. Green, +Josh Malone, Jared Murphy, *John Ross, +Auden Tate, Ka’Raun White, Kermit Whitfield

Last season, saw the team go with a surprising seven wide receivers. While the players definitely deserved to be rostered somewhere, the excitement about the talent pool there overshadowed the more important issues plaguing the roster elsewhere (particularly on the offensive line). Those other problems caused the wide receiver depth to matter little as the offense could barely stay on the field for more than three plays.

There’s still plenty of talent this time around, but there’s some big changes. Cincinnati probably isn’t keeping seven to enter this season, but with their young players growing up and actually seeing the field this time around it may work out better.

Green is of course the leader of the group. Now, he also happens to be the only receiver who has more than two years of experience to his name. 2017 had some strange and frustrating moments from Cincinnati’s offensive star, but he still collected 75 catches, 1,078 yards, and eight touchdowns. Better help from his compatriots could help him soon return to the even greater heights he was at throughout his career.

The main help is expected to come from a healthy Ross. The No. 9 overall pick in 2017 has record-setting speed (set combine record for fastest 40-yard dash time), but injuries never let his rookie year ever really start. Healthy throughout this offseason, he’s shown exactly why the team selected him so highly.

The game-opening catch-and-run touchodwn against Buffalo should strike fear into the opposition and evoke excitement from teammates and Bengals fans for years to come. Put that across from Green for 16 games, and defenses can’t bracket him with a safety every play. With more space, the superstar can be dangerous in a way we may not have been able to see in his career to this point.

With Green and Ross taking up the outside corners and keeping safeties occupied, players like Boyd and Malone will have plenty of room in the slot to work on winning one-on-one matchups. Boyd hasn’t been a consistent threat through two years (he was even a healthy scratch early last year). He’s also the sort of player who can make game-winning plays (like he did to beat Baltimore — and keep the Ravens out of the playoffs — to end last season).

Malone has less production to build off of (217 snaps as a rookie: 17 targets, six receptions, 63 yards, one touchdown), but he’s done pretty well in the preseason and has decent upside.

Erickson isn’t on the same level of athleticism or explosiveness as the other receivers here, but that was the case last year and he still forced his way onto the roster anyway because of a propensity to make timely plays and his special teams ability. He may have some competition as a returner this time around (from someone at a different position, mostly), but he has value as a trustworthy individual who can step up when called upon at receiver while being the first man up at least one of the two returner roles.

With who is left, only two players really had much of a chance to make the roster: Tate and Core. Core was on the roster last year, but this is the second straight year where he had injury issues in the offseason which acted as an impediment to him truly competing in workouts and through training camp. This time around though, there is probably one less receiver spot to hand out and a new young player with exciting abilities who has stepped up and made himself memorable in this battle.

Tate lacks the speed of Core, but he came in as a big target with the ability to make contested catches in small spaces. His game-winning touchdown catch against Chicago this preseason gave him a highlight to point to exactly why he can help a team win — and do a great job proving that point emphatically. Core’s skills are more intoxicating (speed has a way of hypnotizing decision-makers), but while Tate has clear quickness limitations, he offers something more constructive for a team than just dreams of what a player like Core maybe could be if things work out.