It took a little while for the team to make believers of us all, but the Cincinnati Bengals made moves to prove the \u201cAll-In\u201d mentality that was spoken about in the early months of 2026. After a productive free agency period, Cincinnati swung for the fences in a trade for Dexter Lawrence, wherein the squad shipped the No. 10 pick for him to the Giants.<\/p>\n
Count one of the veteran team leaders of the team\u2014Orlando Brown Jr\u2014as one of the many who gives their seal of approval on the deal. In a recent appearance on NFL Network\u2019s \u201cThe Insiders\u201d program, Brown talked about the pleasant surprise and what Lawrence brings to the table for Cincinnati.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was shocked, man, because guys like that don\u2019t even become available\u2014that\u2019s really the crazy part to me,\u201d Brown told the hosts. \u201cWe\u2019re just thankful he ended up here because there\u2019s no telling what would have happened if he had ended up with a divisional rival.\u201d<\/p>\n
In that vein, these are the splashy types of trades and signings routinely seen from larger market teams and perennial powerhouses, including those within the AFC North. To call this move by the Bengals \u201cuncharacteristic\u201d is a massive understatement.<\/p>\n
In a few short days during spring workouts, Lawrence has already made an impression on Brown and his teammates. Aside from his mammoth size, \u201cSexy Dexy\u201d appears to be refreshed by the change of scenery and having his contract situation sorted out.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe just brings such a positive juice to our locker room that was somewhat missing on that side of the ball, man,\u201d Brown continued. \u201cA leader, as I mentioned, loves the game of football, and he\u2019s just so fit for what we are and what it means to be a Bengal. I was so fired up when the trade went through.\u201d<\/p>\n
A key component to the playoff-less run from 2023-2025 for the Bengals was a lack of identity\u2014particularly on defense. Injuries, free agency attrition, and late draft bloomers have all contributed to that issue, but Lawrence coming in with a myriad of solid outside free agents and exciting rookies appears to be getting the Bengals back to the early years of this decade.<\/p>\n
Brown also noted that he had dinner on a Sunday night with Lawrence once the trade was officially consummated. It\u2019s quite possible that the \u201cjuice\u201d and \u201cfit\u201d comments initially stemmed from that sit-down.<\/p>\n
Regardless, it appears that the team is already feeling the impact of Lawrence on the roster, and the hope is that his arrival will pay huge, immediate dividends for a defense needing a quick turnaround in performance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It took a little while for the team to make believers of us all, but the Cincinnati Bengals…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[8936,139,141,140],"class_list":["post-270836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-cincinnati-bengals-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}