Left guard
Cordell Volson was inconsistent last season, and behind him on the depth chart is Cody Ford and Nate Gilliam -- neither name inspires a ton of confidence. Protecting Joe Burrow is of extreme import to the Bengals, and it will be up to Volson to improve in 2024. Bengals director of player personnel Duke Tobin is optimistic that will happen.
Asked about Cordell Volson, Duke Tobin said "he's still young" and praised his "attitude, toughness, size, think he's a good run blocker, think he still has a lot of upside... we've seen a lot of good out of Cordell, I don't think any of us have seen the best yet"
— Jake Liscow (@JakeLiscow) February 28, 2024
The pressure will be on Volson to step his game up in 2024.
Punter
The Bengals just drafted Brad Robbins in the sixth round of the NFL Draft last year to be their new punter, but he had an extremely underwhelming rookie campaign. Per Puntalytics, Robbins was the worst punter in the NFL by a couple of different metrics last season,
Final Punter Rankings of the season! pic.twitter.com/fRkqzPRAo0
— Puntalytics (@ThePuntRunts) January 8, 2024
The Bengals know that this is an area in need of improvement, and the obvious hope in Cincinnati is that Robbins is able to improve heading into his second season.
"I certainly think there's still a lot of meat left on the bone for him," Bengals special teams coordinator Darrin Simmons said of Robbins earlier this year. "If you go back and look statistically where his rookie year was and comparison like what Kevin Huber's was, it's still better.
"I think I don't want to overreact here. I think that's part of my job is to help develop him and make him better," he added. "I think you can do that. I think he has the right mindset. He's very open to that when we bring up techniques we might want to change a little bit to help that production. It's certainly an area we've got to get better at quickly."
Hopefully Robbins is able to develop, but if not, the Bengals will have to make another change at the position.