Allen’s optimism provides any detractors with some easy material regarding where exactly the “somewhere” is the Bengals are going, given Cincy just suffered its first double-digit losing season since 2020 and has watched the playoffs from home for three straight seasons.<\/p>\n
However, his new squad is undeniably loaded on offense. Burrow remains one of the best quarterbacks in the league. He has one of the NFL’s preeminent wide receiver duos in Ja’Marr Chase<\/a> and Tee Higgins<\/a> to throw to and a dynamic backfield talent in Chase Brown<\/a>.<\/p>\n The club is presumably a healthy Burrow season and defensive improvement even to near league average away from turning it around.<\/p>\n Cincinnati’s defense has repeatedly dropped the ball amid the three-year postseason drought, ranking in the bottom third in points allowed and actually getting worse in that regard in each successive campaign — from 21st to 25th to 30th.<\/p>\n That’s where Allen and other defensive reinforcements, such as pass rusher Boye Mafe<\/a> and safety Bryan Cook<\/a>, come in. Allen believes the additions and a core of up-and-comers can make the difference, and while the Bengals are now without<\/a> star defensive end Trey Hendrickson<\/a> after already struggling mightily to make stops last season, there are a few notable up-and-comers. Safety Jordan Battle<\/a> led the team in both tackles (125) and interceptions (four) and matched two other teammates with two forced fumbles last season. Cornerback DJ Turner II<\/a>, who also forced two fumbles, paced the Bengals with 18 passes defensed and finished as the NFL’s sixth-rated corner in coverage by PFF.<\/p>\n Allen fits into the equation as a versatile interior lineman plenty capable of getting to the quarterback. He’s logged 45.5 sacks and 129 QB hits across nine career seasons and believes he’ll be able to maximize his abilities lining up in multiple spots along the line in defensive coordinator Al Golden’s scheme.<\/p>\n “That’s one of the things that excited me the most about coming here,” Allen said. “They’re talking about moving me around, getting some one-on-ones and really being able to get after the passer and shut down the run, the things I love to do.”<\/p>\n A fixture with Washington for eight seasons and a 17-game starter for the Vikings last year, Allen has experienced only two postseason trips.<\/p>\n Now with Cincinnati, he’s gearing up for a hopeful third and perhaps more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Allen’s optimism provides any detractors with some easy material regarding where exactly the “somewhere” is the Bengals are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[6255,1822,236653,8851,3,6257,215714,99],"class_list":["post-525626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-around-the-nfl","tag-cincinnati-bengals","tag-jonathan-allen","tag-minnesota-vikings","tag-news","tag-no-minute","tag-offseason-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}