One of the biggest pain points was the linebacker position. The team completely rebooted it under new coordinator Al Golden, benching Logan Wilson en route to his trade request.
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Rookies Demetrius Knight and Barrett Carter also struggled mightily when they were thrown to the proverbial wolves.
Another major point of blame that slipped through the cracks in real time? Veteran Oren Burks.
When analyzing each team’s worst free agency signing, Bradley Locker of Pro Football Focus singled out Burks:
“The Bengals made several defensive additions that didn’t materialize, and Burks was arguably the worst of that group. The former Packer signed a two-year deal but only played 340 snaps, yielding an overall PFF grade of 30.2, the lowest at the position.”
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This quietly went unnoticed, but the Bengals also failed with this signing. They tried to do the same thing they did with Geno Stone, taking a guy who looked promising somewhere else and seeing if he could become a starter.
Burks, after all, has primarily been a special teams player his entire career. In Philadelphia in 2024, he played just 14 percent of base defense snaps. That jumped to 31 percent with the Bengals, almost a career high.
The Bengals needed to make depth signings after moving on from Germaine Pratt and even Akeem Davis-Gaither. Instead, they failed and had no alternative options when the rookies began to struggle.
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This article originally appeared on Bengals Wire: Bengals’ worst free agent signing shouldn’t escape blame