Rueben Bain Jr. gives the Bengals a perfect message during his NFL Scouting Combine meeting with Cincinnati
Bain loves football, and Cincinnati loves players like him.
Rueben Bain Jr. wants you to know he loves to play football. The Cincinnati Bengals only want players who love playing football.
A match made in heaven? Sure sounds like it.
Bain, one of the top defensive prospects in the 2026 NFL Draft, confirmed to media members Wednesday afternoon Cincinnati was one of the teams he met with at the NFL Scouting Combine this week. He also shared his closing message to the personnel staff on hand for the interview.
“(Expletive) I eat, sleep, and breathe football. I have no hobbies.”
Consider that music to the Bengals’ ears.
Rueben Bain Jr. sounds like the ideal draft pick for Cincinnati
The head of the Bengals’ draft war room is director of player personnel Duke Tobin. His philosophies are what build the team’s draft board every year, and his trust for others in the process is hard-earned. When asked earlier in the week what he believes is the most important trait is for a draft hopeful, he described the kind of person Bain claims to be.
“The No. 1 trait, you have to love football,” Tobin said. “You have to be playing football because you enjoy the game. If you’re playing football just because of what it brings you, it’s normally not going to be a long-term thing for you. You have to be playing football because you love doing it, and so we really want to know, does the guy love football? If it didn’t bring the things that NFL, football brings, which are great, but if it didn’t bring those things, would he still be playing? Would he still be playing in the Arena Football League, or wanting to go to the CFL? Does he love the game, and then we can build off of that.”
It should be safe to assume Bain nailed that portion of the interview. The Miami (FL) product entered the week as the No. 3 player on the A to Z Sports Mock Draft Database. He went No. 3 overall to the Arizona Cardinals in our latest 7-round mock draft. He will not perform on-field testing at the combine.
Tobin has made it clear he wants to bolster Cincinnati’s pass rush this offseason. Bain would make the Bengals’ defense so much better in that regard. So long as they feel comfortable with the tape and Bain as a football-loving individual, he should end up very high on their final board.