Bengals' tumultuous defense fears to have suffered a loss it simply cannot afford to take
It's hard for the Cincinnati Bengals' defense to get any worse, but a major injury to cornerback Dax Hill certainly won't make things better. Per NFL Media's Ian Rapoport, the fear is that Hill tore his ACL on Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens. The injury would take him out for the rest of the season. […]
It's hard for the Cincinnati Bengals' defense to get any worse, but a major injury to cornerback Dax Hill certainly won't make things better.
Per NFL Media's Ian Rapoport, the fear is that Hill tore his ACL on Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens. The injury would take him out for the rest of the season.
Hill walked off the field after his 18th snap of the game Sunday afternoon and into the locker room. The team declared him out not long after his departure, indicating that the injury had the potential to be severe.
Who replaces Dax Hill at cornerback?
When Hill left the game, DJ Turner II finished it for him. Turner has acted as the first cornerback off the bench this season. He played for a struggling Cam Taylor-Britt last week against the Carolina Panthers. Now he will take the field as a starter on the boundary once more.
Turner started for most of his rookie season in 2023 after emerging as a better option than veteran Chidobe Awuzie, who was recovering from his own torn ACL at the time. This year, he battled Hill for the starting gig on one side of the formation while Taylor-Britt held down the other. Hill won the battle, which was more of an indication of his growth rather than Turner's regression.
Without Hill available for the remainder of the season, the first corner off the bench now falls on rookie Josh Newton. The fifth-round pick played 11 snaps on Sunday, and has played 23 snaps all season thus far.
Dax Hill now deals with another obstacle in his Bengals career
Nothing has been simple for Hill in his now three years in Cincinnati. He first was drafted as a safety and hardly played at all as a rookie in 2022. He took over for Jessie Bates III in 2023 and proved that those shoes were far too large to fill. The team moved him to cornerback this offseason in hopes that the position would be a better fit for his skillset.
And they were right! Hill was exuding more consistency at cornerback than at safety only for his season to be shortened to four-and-a-half games.
Luckily for Hill, a torn ACL suffered in early October will give him a great chance of making a full recovery by the start of the 2025 season. Unless the Bengals exercise his fifth-year option before then, Hill will be extra motivated entering the last year of his rookie contract.
In proving Joe Burrow right, the Bengals look very unworthy of having him as their quarterback
The Bengals can’t continue to operate this way for the remainder of the season.
