The Cincinnati Bengals play their final game of the 2023 season and it could mark the end of these players’ tenures in the Queen City. What the three players I’ll be talking about in this article have in common is that they joined the Bengals this season and could be on their way out after just one year.
The common theme with all three of these players is that they underwhelmed. Two of them were veterans who have spent the first four years or so of their careers with one team and then joined the Bengals in the offseason. The other player was a rookie who was a massive disappointment despite coming in with all sorts of hype.
It’s worth noting that two of these players aren’t going to be free agents so moving on might not be a guarantee but it feels like the Bengals should part ways.
Irv Smith Jr.
The Bengals lost Hayden Hurst last offseason and they signed Irv Smith Jr. to be their starting tight end. The experiment didn’t go so well but not for the reasons we thought it might fail.
Before Smith came to Cincinnati, he was a second-round pick by the Vikings in 2019. Injuries plagued his time in Minnesota and that’s why when the Bengals signed him, it felt like he could be productive if the injury bug didn’t get to him.
That was not the case for the former Alabama product, as he only had 18 catches for 115 yards and one touchdown in 12 games. Smith was passed on the depth chart by Drew Sample and Tanner Hudson and with him not being under contract next year, it feels like a near certainty that Smith will not be back in 2024.
