Cincinnati’s Defensive Rebuild Gets Its First Real Evidence

Cincinnati’s defense forced four turnovers Sunday, one year after grading out as the worst unit at that stage.

Getting there cost Cincinnati a first-round pick and a defensive coordinator’s entire debut season.

The Bengals defensive rebuild turned four takeaways and a 33-27 win over Tampa Bay into its first real evidence Sunday. Fans packed Paycor Stadium and Bengals watch parties around Cincinnati to see it. Cincinnati converted those turnovers into 24 points and beat the Buccaneers to open the 2026 season. The question worth asking isn’t whether the defense looked different. It’s what Cincinnati actually paid to make that true. It’s also whether one Sunday proves anything at all.

Cincinnati’s 2025 Defense Was the Worst Al Golden Had Coached

Al Golden took over as Cincinnati’s defensive coordinator in January 2025. He replaced Lou Anarumo after the Bengals missed the playoffs for a second straight year. His first season did not go the way anyone in the building expected. Through 11 games last year, ESPN’s DVOA metric rated Cincinnati’s defense the worst it had ever measured at that point in a season. The defense allowed 6.3 yards per play and produced only 10 takeaways over that stretch. The Bengals finished 2025 allowing 28.9 points a game, 30th in the NFL. They also allowed 147.1 rushing yards a game, worst in the league, according to season totals from Pro Football Reference.

That marked a real step backward. Anarumo’s final season in 2024 ranked 25th in total defense and 26th in scoring. That was mediocre but not historic. Golden’s first year finished worse on nearly every measure that mattered. In sum, Cincinnati closed 2025 at 6-11.

Cincinnati Spent Real Draft Capital and Real Money to Fix It

The rebuild started with a departure. Trey Hendrickson, the defense’s best player and a 17.5-sack All-Pro as recently as 2024, left for Baltimore in free agency. This happened after Cincinnati had already given him a one-year, $30 million raise just to keep him through the 2025 season. The Ravens signed him for roughly $28 million a year.

Cincinnati replaced that production with a trade most teams would not make, then kept spending across the defensive front:

• Dexter Lawrence, DT — acquired from the Giants for Cincinnati’s 2026 first-round pick, the 10th overall selection, then signed to a one-year, $28 million extension on top of the two years and $42 million already left on his deal, a three-year, $70 million commitment in total, according to ESPN’s coverage of the trade.
• Jonathan Allen, DT — signed away from Minnesota on a two-year deal reportedly worth $28 million.
• Boye Mafe, EDGE — signed to a multi-year free-agent contract after four seasons in Seattle.
• Bryan Cook, S — signed to a multi-year free-agent contract after three seasons in Kansas City.

Cincinnati has also leaned on cap flexibility before, including last year’s cap-space restructuring of Joe Burrow’s contract. Golden kept his job. The roster around him did not stay the same.

The Bengals Defensive Rebuild Showed Up in Four Different Ways

Sunday’s four takeaways split cleanly between the players Cincinnati drafted and the players it bought. Myles Murphy, a 2023 first-round pick, and Barrett Carter, a second-year linebacker, converged on Baker Mayfield for the sack that forced his first fumble, and Demetrius Knight Jr., another young linebacker, returned it 27 yards for a touchdown. Carter later forced a fumble alone at the goal line, his second takeaway of the day.

The free-agent additions produced the other two. Cook forced a fumble from Bucky Irving that Mafe recovered, and Mafe himself later stripped Mayfield on a sack in the fourth quarter. Carter finished with a team-high eight tackles and a half-sack. Knight added seven tackles to his touchdown.

Head coach Zac Taylor credited the young linebackers’ recognition after reviewing the tape. “I think just the speed in which they diagnose things and go make a play,” Taylor told Bengals.com. “There’s no hesitation.” Golden singled out Carter specifically. “I think Barrett had some really nice plays,” Golden said. “… Had some nice run fits, and his overall command was really good with the (radio helmet).”

One Sunday Is Not a Verdict

A defense built around forcing fumbles cannot expect to recover four of four every week. The bounce matters as much as the hit, and Cincinnati’s perfect recovery rate Sunday will not repeat itself all season.

A more specific problem sat underneath the turnovers. Tackling was the Bengals’ defining weakness in 2025. They missed a league-worst 171 tackles across the season. Sunday did not fix it. PFF charted Cincinnati with 13 missed tackles against Tampa Bay, two more than the Bengals missed in the same spot a year ago. This happened even as missed tackles league-wide ticked down slightly in Week 1. Carter and Knight, the two young linebackers central to Sunday’s takeaways, also led the team in missed tackles, three each. This continued the exact pattern that made them the two least reliable tacklers on last year’s roster.

Tampa Bay also moved the ball. Mayfield completed 23 of 28 passes for 216 yards, and the Buccaneers scored or turned it over on every possession rather than getting stopped outright. Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles summed up his own team’s afternoon plainly. “The sad part is we didn’t punt,” Bowles said in Tampa Bay’s postgame report. “It was either a turnover or points.” Four takeaways bought Cincinnati a comfortable final score. They didn’t fix the tackling problem that made 2025 historically bad. Furthermore, that problem is harder to paper over against an offense that doesn’t fumble four times.

Houston Provides the Next Data Point

Cincinnati’s Week 2 opponent will not care about a perfect fumble-recovery rate. The Texans will care whether Murphy, Allen and Lawrence can win up front on obvious passing downs without needing the ball to bounce their way. They will also care whether Carter and Knight can bring ball carriers down on first contact instead of missing tackles the way both did Sunday and did all of last season.

The Bengals spent a first-round pick, a departed All-Pro’s replacement cost, and real money across four positions to get out of the worst defensive season Al Golden has coached. Sunday showed what that investment can look like when the ball bounces Cincinnati’s way. It also showed the tackling problem underneath that investment is still there. Houston, in Week 2, is where the turnovers stop covering for it or don’t.