It's OK to acknowledge that the Cincinnati Bengals could use at least some competition for their No. 3 wide receiver spot, which Andrei Iosivas still has the inside track for in 2026.
The Bengals did draft Georgia wideout Colbie Young in the fourth round. He'll have an opportunity to unseat Iosivas. All that said, there's a difference between fair criticism — or drawing conclusions from a personnel decision — and vicious, ill-intended attacks that impact one's mental health.
After a promising 2024 campaign in which he scored six TDs, Iosivas is coming off a down season in which he battled drops and generally didn't produce as expected.
Iosivas addressed some of the woes he had last year in speaking with reporters, and it turns out, there were some awful off-field distractions that contributed to his difficulties.
Andrei Iosivas received disturbed direct messages on social media amid last year's struggles
In responding to a simple question about what transpired during the Bengals' disappointing 2025 season, Iosivas let outsiders behind the curtain of the ugly reality that can be a pro athlete's DMs, via CLNSCincy.com's Mike Petraglia:
"I feel like last year I was in my head a little bit. Because the situations were weird, I had those drops in those games. People were telling me to k*** myself and all that kind of stuff. I never had that kind of stuff happen to be before, so it got in my head a little bit. When your DMs are flooded with people telling you to k*** yourself. It makes me angry honestly."
“It makes me angry.” Andrei Iosivas dealt with nastiness of the worst kind from social media last season pic.twitter.com/P3sls91Hhq
— Mike Petraglia (@Trags) May 12, 2026
As a sports media person, comments sections, one-off emails, or occasional DMs can be the sites of serious vitriol from those who are chronically online and don't have the emotional regulations in place to control themselves.
For the pro athletes who are actually doing the thing on the field that millions of us are fascinated by, who often get paid millions of dollars to do it, it appears fans feel within their rights to hurtle boundless insults at them. Why? Some misplaced perception that it "comes with the territory."
Telling another human being to end their life is pretty messed up in any context. It's unclear how fans get to the point where they cheer for a team, go out of their way to message a player on said team, and scream the worst possible things at them that they would never inflict upon anyone they cared about in their lives. Nor would they have the gall to say this to the athlete's face. In-person. Away from the Internet.
It can't be easy for Iosivas to speak out on this, but it's commendable that he did. Sometimes, we could all use a good reminder that pro athletes are human beings, too, and all the brain rot and head trash that social media can throw anyone's way impacts their lives. Perhaps even more so than the average person, since they're so squarely in the public eye.
Here's hoping Andrei Iosivas shakes those awful threats off (easier said than done), rallies back, seizes the WR3 job, and plays well enough to make paying the Bengals paying him a high priority next offseason.
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