Dax Hill sends Bengals pointed warning to avoid the same mistake thrice

The Cincinnati Bengals have a tendency to complicate issues that don't need to be complicated, or create problems that don't need to be problems. Take cornerback Dax Hill, for instance.

Hill was selected in the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft to be Jessie Bates' replacement as a franchise safety. It was a poor decision-making process to let someone like Bates loose, especially as Joe Burrow stumped for him at every turn.

It's been a turbulent four seasons for Hill in Cincinnati to say the least. Now that he's finally coming into his own, though, the Bengals must not fix what isn't broken.

Dax Hill jokes (but not really) that he wants to play boundary CB for mental health reasons

You're not gonna believe this (you will), but Dax Hill hasn't actually been told where he's meant to play position-wise in 2026. Hill doesn't know if he's in line to start on the outside or at the nickel. At least that's what he said to the media.

And as sad-in-the-moment people tend to do, Hill deflected with humor at his perpetual plight of positional confusion, via Mike Petraglia of CLNSCincy.com:

"Once you feel like you’re growing and producing, I feel like the sky’s the limit. And you want to reach the ceiling whenever you’re young. It’s going on Year 5. I don’t want to waste a whole lot of time. [...] Staying in one spot. I feel like that’s ideal for development and my mental health. […] We’re three weeks into it now, so we’ll wait and see. Like I said, I’d rather be outside."

As Biff Tannen famously said, "There's something very familiar about all this."

To circle back to the intro of this here article, Hill flopped as Jessie Bates' replacement at safety. Rather than play him as a slot cornerback, where he played the most by far in college at Michigan, the Bengals opted to stick Hill on the boundary in 2024.

And you know what? They accidentally stumbled into a great coaching decision! What geniuses.

Guess what those same geniuses did after Hill's 2024 season sadly got cut short by a torn ACL? They welcomed him back to the starting lineup the next year, except he was thrust into duty as the full-time nickelback.

It wasn't until Cam Taylor-Britt's epic flame-out and Jalen Davis' ascent from practice squad obscurity to nickel extraordinaire that Hill was allowed to play the position he's best suited for.

Once Hill was on the perimeter opposite DJ Turner, he was one of the very best corners in the league. You'd think that, for a defense that was so atrocious in recent years and spent so many resources to upgrade this offseason, they'd eliminate as much guesswork as possible when it comes to incumbent players.

Welp. Apparently not.

So to recap the mistakes Cincinnati has made on Hill's behalf ever since he landed in the Queen City.

Mistake No. 1: Drafting Hill to succeed Bates in the first place, rather than playing him in the slot, which was already occupied by a Bengals star in Mike Hilton. Thus making that draft pick thought process even worse.

Mistake No. 2: Bumbling into starting Hill on the boundary, witnessing his raging success, and then moving him to a full-on nickelback role once he was healthy from that devastating knee injury.

Hypothetical Mistake No. 3: Witnessing Hill ball out once again on the boundary in 2025, only to move him back to the slot in favor of...who? Rookie third-round pick Tacario Davis?

Just when you swear everything is shaping up so well for the Bengals, a baffling quagmire that's really not a quagmire at all arises. Good grief.

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