DrewSample

Sep 14

While All is the tight end several were excited about heading into the season, Gesicki caught five passes for 78 yards and a touchdown.

The Bengals' biggest addition on offense this offseason was the return of All, who missed half of 2024 and all of 2025 with an ACL tear. While All is a talented tight end, his path to being fantasy-relevant has been blocked by his role in Cincinnati. Drew Sample receives significant playing time for his blocking, while Gesicki plays in the most obvious passing situations. All was the main receiving tight end on early downs when he was healthy. Noah Fant took that role last season before leaving in free agency. Based on All’s one preseason game, we expected him to have that responsibility again. A tight end needs a receiving role on both early downs and the obvious passing situations to be fantasy-relevant. The Bengals largely continued their typical rotation, where Sample was the primary tight end in 11 personnel on early downs. Sample also took several of the 11 personnel snaps on third downs for his blocking. Sample was consistently on the field in 12 personnel, while Gesicki and All split snaps in those situations. If anything, Gesicki received less playing time than his usual game from last season, particularly in 11 personnel, but his target rate skyrocketed to 41. 2% targets per route. Last season, his rate was 18%, with a few spike games in the 30s but under 20% in half of his games.

Sep 2

The Bengals have utilized a tight end room with distinctly different skill sets in recent years, where Gesicki and Hudson were on the field for 80 percent of pass plays and Sample and Grandy were more indicative of run plays. They’ve looked for more All-types that are true dual threats. The irony is they found it in the seventh round on what was projected as a pass-first type. “You have to have a willingness to block, that’s A1, whether that’s an F-role or Y-role, he’s shown he’s more than willing to get in the mix,” starter Drew Sample said of Endries. “For a rookie, he did a pretty good job of having a solid base of technique and understanding angles and footwork. That’s half the battle.” The Bengals moved Endries around in the fullback spot, in-line and across the formation, setting him up to offer more than Grandy, who excelled as a run blocker but never took as a receiver. They have more faith that he will do that. After all, that’s why they drafted him.