Cincinnati Bengals waste no time in potentially adding O.J. Howard

Wow, that was quick, eh? It hasn’t even been 24 hours yet and the Cincinnati Bengals were quick to try and swoop in tight end O.J. Howard. After having recently been released by the Buffalo Bills, the Bengals contacted Howard to host him on Wednesday. As per Ian Rapoport, if everything goes well with his visit, physical, and with the coaching staff, it’s expected he will sign a contract.

Hopefully, that is the case since his surprise cut by the Bills definitely was a shock to the football world due to all his experience. Howard hasn’t been doing well in training camp and preseason but the general belief is the Bills saw more from tight end Tommy Sweeney.

Whether or not Sweeney has more upside than Howard remains to be seen but at any rate, if the Bengals do indeed end up signing Howard, he would bring immediate depth to their tight end situation. He’s entering his sixth NFL season and still has a lot of football left in him.

O.J. Howard will add quality depth to the Cincinnati Bengals

Potentially being on a brand new team that was almost victorious in Super Bowl LVI, if Howard can live up to his potential, this could be a very wise signing by the Bengals. If anything, it’ll take him a week or two to learn the offensive playbook, and hopefully, he can step right in and take care of business when his number is called.

More information will be made available if he does sign with the team and in what capacity. It’s expected he should be on the 53-man roster just to ensure another team doesn’t try to scoop him up if he’s just on their practice squad.

When healthy and playing up to his potential, Howard showed his speed, ability to make plays after the catch, and be a decent blocker in pass protection. The Bengals could definitely use him as quality depth as it makes sense to add someone as experienced as him now as one never knows what awaits during the regular season.

This is a good depth move by the Bengals as there isn’t much to risk involved and could pay off nicely if everything falls into place. Only time will tell but the Bengals would be a great new home for Howard to hopefully find his stride and go back to the kind of player he was over his first few seasons in the NFL before his unfortunate torn ACL injury. The potential is definitely there and who knows, maybe it’ll be the Bengals to bring that back out of him.