It’s here! After the endless, stultifying wait for the new NFL season and the metric tons of ink spilled and voices raised over the offseason direction and rebuild of the team, the 2026 Bengals at last kick off real play on Sunday afternoon. Cincinnati hosts the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at 1 p.m. to begin a campaign that hopefully doesn’t end until next Valentine’s Day (it’s true), when Super Bowl LXI takes place at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles.
We finally will get to see what the new defense, led by Dexter Lawrence in the middle, will look like after a desperately needed reconstruction. We will see what the pass rush looks like in the first year of the post-Trey Hendrickson era. We will see if linebackers Demetrious Knight and Barrett Carter can improve in Year 2. We will see how free agent pickups Jonathan Allen, Boye Mafe, and Bryan Cook will impact the unit. And we will see if the ultra-motivated Joe Burrow, at last (hah!) fully dedicated to the team and the city, can stay healthy and fulfill the MVP promise he’s exuded when upright and dropping dimes on enemy defenses.
More so than usual, the 2026 season delivers high hopes and expectations, perhaps higher than any in recent memory. Remember, even after going to the 2021 Super Bowl, the overwhelming narrative was that the Bengals were a bit flukey and were destined to regress to their natural water level. (They didn’t, of course, but that was what the summer of 2022 was like.) As the kids say, the vibes are immaculate around the club, and the sky is the limit. Of course, that’s usually when the ice breaks and the franchise tumbles into the frigid water.
It will be incumbent upon this year’s model to either start fast or, if as I alluded to in last week’s column things start less than peachy, to remain calm and improve as the season proceeds. The Bengals have an easy schedule on paper, but the start isn’t a cakewalk, beginning with this tricky encounter with Tampa. The Bucs started 6-2 last season, including a 38-35 thriller over the champion Seahawks out in the Pacific Northwest, and then were ravaged by injury and collapsed to a 2-7 second half to finish 8-9 and miss the postseason.
They’re healthy now, and the areas of poor play have been addressed, albeit with young, untested players. Baker Mayfield, after a summer of sturm und drang, at last put pen to paper and signed a three-year deal earlier in the week. It would have been nice to have the extension remain a lingering issue into this game, I suppose, but then one could also argue Mayfield won’t be quite as motivated now. He was a Bengals killer during his days in Cleveland, and overall he’s 6-2 against Cincinnati, averaging nearly 240 yards per game with a 21/7 TD/INT ratio. Still, it’s been a while since we’ve tangled with Baker—his last start vs. Cincy was with Carolina in 2022, a 42-21 Bengals drubbing.
I expect Mayfield to be fine. Most of his issues last season were injury-related—his and the offensive line’s. With the great Tristan Wirfs apparently fully healthy at left tackle, the Bucs front five will be an immediate test for Cincinnati’s remade pass rush. Graham Barton, the rare center to be drafted in the first round, begins his third season with a much-awaited matchup with Lawrence. How that interior battle plays out will go a long way toward determining the result, at least when Tampa has the ball.
The Bucs defense, long a strength and the specialty of head coach Todd Bowles, was brutal in 2025. Much like the Bengals, they went all in to fix the problem, at least in the draft. A trio of much-discussed potential Bengals targets last spring—edge Reuben Bain, linebacker Josiah Trotter, and slot cornerback Keionte Scott—were all selected by Tampa, and all three are expected to start on Sunday. While these guys are good prospects, it’s an advantage to take them on in Week 1, when they will presumably still be treading water. We could know a lot about Orlando Brown’s status going forward if he struggles mightily with supervillain Bane, uh, Bain.
Scott is poised to be Tampa’s fifth starting slot corner in five seasons—and you thought Cincinnati struggles to fill the position? His profile coming out of college (where he played six seasons, none of them for Lane Kiffin) was as a good run defender and blitzer who struggles in coverage. Look for the Bengals to move Ja’Marr Chase into the slot on numerous occasions to try and exploit this potential matchup.
It would be better if nose tackle Vita Vea, Tampa’s version of Dexter Lawrence, would have extended his contract holdout into the season, but he re-signed back in August. Controlling him will be of major import in the game. Center Ted Karras already will have his hands full helping to implement the new under-center attack Cincy has practiced all offseason. Facing Vea will show just how much Karras learned from a rough summer of dealing with Lawrence. Overall, the Bucs front, a liability last season, has the potential to be a handful and a real challenge for Cincinnati’s O-line.
Much will depend, naturally, on the health of Chase and Tee Higgins, who don’t seem to have serious ouchies but have been limited for the last couple of weeks—Uno with the hyperextended knee, Tee with a heel issue. Presuming they’re good to go, the passing attack should be its usual electric self. It’ll be fun to see how the running game is a) affected by the under center switcheroo and b) if it can continue the sterling play it showed in the last 10 or so games of 2025. Every season is a new novel, so presuming carryover is a fool’s errand. But if the offense can be truly multiple and disguise its intent more effectively, the team can truly unlock a new level of explosiveness.
We can break down this matchup and the overall gestalt of both teams and the moves they made in the offseason to death. But as Conan once said, Enough talk! It’s just about game time.
There has actually been a game played already, the Super Bowl rematch of last night (with Seattle winning again), and another tonight in Melbourne, Australia, of all places. (Where was this when I was living in Sydney for two years?) But the game that truly matters is Sunday afternoon EST. It can’t get here soon enough.
Robert Weintraub heads up Bengals coverage for Cincinnati Magazine and has written for The New York Times, Grantland, Slate, and Deadspin. Follow him on X at @robwein.
