One silver lining to the Cincinnati Bengals' disastrous 2025 season was how well the offensive line played, particularly once Joe Flacco began to fill in as the starting quarterback.
Joe Burrow has gotten pummeled for most of his NFL career. Now, in addition to having elite weapons like Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, he should enjoy the best pass protection he's ever had this year.
All that said, there is one particular position group on the offensive unit that could use some reinforcements via the 2026 NFL Draft. Mike Gesicki is the only starting-caliber player in that room, and Erick All Jr. missed all of last season with a nagging knee injury that required multiple surgeries.
While there's reason to be bullish on a healthy Gesicki and All's upside, Cincinnati should quest for an upgrade over the likes of Drew Sample and Tanner Hudson. Both of them will be free agents in 2027, and Gesicki has an outside chance to be a salary cap casualty.
No time like the present to build some tight end depth, which a major publication has just identified as a sneaky need to spark a fresh angle on Bengals draft discourse.
Bleacher Report names tight end as 'surprising' Bengals draft need, so who are the best fits?
B/R's Alex Ballentine came up with a surprising draft need for every team across the league, and tight end came up as the position of choice in Cincinnati. He also named three targets for the Bengals to consider: Notre Dame's Eli Raridon, Baylor's Michael Trigg, and Jack Endries out of Texas.
Raridon is who I'd go for amongst that trio. His blend of high-end run blocking flashes in front of Jeremiyah Love and pass-catching production (32 receptions for 482 yards in 2025) are rather appealing. What a nice Combine workout he had, too, with a 4.62 40 (1.6 flat 10-yard split) and 20 reps on the bench press.
Eli Raridon is going to be so good in the NFL
— NFL Draft Files (@NFL_DF) March 13, 2026
You’ll find a lot of Jeremiyah Love’s highlights are secretly Eli Raridon run blocking highlights https://t.co/OvTHeufBOz
There are also a couple better fits than Trigg and Endries who could be had with less premium picks. My reservations toward those two are as follows.
Trigg was suspended at Baylor and quit on Ole Miss' program before that. Sounds like another Jermaine Burton type. No thank you! Endries is a fine option, but he'd likely require a higher pick than the other pair I'm about to break down.
Georgia tight end Oscar Delp and Indiana product Riley Nowakowski stand out as excellent Day 3 options. I just got Nowakowski in my latest seven-round mock draft with the final pick at No. 226 overall. Methinks he could go a round or two earlier, but hey, I'd take him as high as 189th, or even trade up into the fifth round for him.
Not only was Delp overshadowed by the likes of Brock Bowers and other studs at Georgia, but he played 2025 with a hairline fracture in his foot. He ran a sub-4.5 40 at the Bulldogs' pro day and didn't get many chances to show off his immense pass-catching upside in college. Georgia relegated him to mostly blocking duties, wherein Delp excelled.
Here's how PFF's big board stacks up all the tight ends mentioned in this here article:
106. Michael Trigg
131. Jack Endries
161. Eli Raridon
215. Oscar Delp
229. Riley Nowakowski
Not to suggest this guarantees where all these fellas will be drafted. It's just a sufficient general gauge to approximate what it'd take for Cincinnati to land any of them.
So yeah. Raridon, Delp, or Nowakowski would raise the floor of the Bengals' tight end room. Any one of them would liberate Cincinnati to move off Sample, and avoid a dicey scenario where the team is counting on All as the beyond-reproach TE2 of the future.