This is too juicy of an angle to ignore. The Cincinnati Bengals commendably traded the 10th overall pick for Dexter Lawrence. He's transformed their defense to a splashy, if inconsistent, outfit that's still working through some growing pains with so many new pieces.
But in pulling off the deal for Sexy Dexy, the Bengals closed the door on a reunion with D.J. Reader (I stumped for a second stint for Reader back in January). He was the anchor in the trenches for those Cincinnati teams that went to two straight AFC title games and Super Bowl LVI.
Not gonna lie, I kinda forgot that this happened. Lawrence has been so good in Cincy so far. However, as many of us ball knowers in the fanbase have said for a long time, Reader is that dude.
Reader, not Dexter, actually leads all interior defenders in PFF grades
Can you believe it? As we head into Week 8, D.J. Reader is the top-graded defensive tackle in the NFL by PFF's metrics, while Dexter Lawrence is No. 2.
DJ Reader might be the perfect Dexter Lawrence replacement pic.twitter.com/tblgFI5SKC
— PFF (@PFF) October 27, 2026
For me, Lawrence is a superior pass rusher, while Reader will give you all you can ask for in run defense. It's just that Reader is 32, Lawrence is 29 next month, and the Bengals indubitably made the right call by not reuniting with D.J., as dope as that would've been.
There's realistically more runway for Lawrence to make an impact in Cincinnati for the long haul. Reader would've been an awesome player to have back but more of a Band-Aid, stopgap solution to a problem the Bengals refuse to address.
Even as things stand now, with all the double teams Lawrence commands, prior to a stellar run defense performance in Week 7 at Baltimore, the Bengals were allowing five yards per carry.
So yeah. However interchangeable Reader or Lawrence are at this specific moment, the bigger-picture move the Bengals made for the latter was the correct one.
Speaking of that win over the Ravens, though, we can't not check in on ex-Bengals without mentioning the elephant in the room...
Trey Hendrickson loses badly in revenge game, and makes it worse...
Not that Trey Hendrickson himself was that bad against the Bengals in Week 7, but he wasn't impactful enough to stop Joe Burrow and Co. from hanging 35 unanswered points in the second half.
Hendrickson then implied afterwards that not all his teammates were locked in, via Bobby Trosset on X/Twitter:
"Continuing to go out there and finishing the game was most important. I can't speak for everybody else, but there is a standard to the way we should prepare and nobody should be having these side conversations on the sideline, if there is any."
There's a bit of a leadership problem in Baltimore. Doesn't help when perpetually weird-energy Lamar Jackson and all his playoff choking is the supposed main driving force in the locker room. Derrick Henry isn't the most outspoken dude. Marlon Humphrey has personality but no longer has the game to back it up.
And as for Hendrickson, well, he was always a bit of a soft-spoken enigma in Cincinnati. I thought he deserved to be compensated better when he was here and wanted to extend him just because the Bengals demonstrated zero willingness to look outside the building for alternatives prior to this past offseason.
Anyway, it's funny now to see Trey in a bad situation in the division with a head coach in Jesse Minter whose hiring was universally praised, but who seems way in over his head. HAHA.
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