Bengals Practice Report: Acrobatic Catches Lead Offense To Celebrated Win

The circus came to town for Cincinnati Bengals training camp Thursday. Wide receivers Trenton Irwin and Andrei Iosivas made acrobatic catches in the final drill of the day — Red Zone Lockout — to lift the offense to the victory in head coach Zac Taylor’s scoring system.

Trenton Irwin and Andrei Iosivas Make Leaping Grabs in Cincinnati Bengals Practice

“The last two years we’ve lost in that drill, and yesterday we got our … we got beat by the defense,” Irwin said. “We wanted to come out today and get things going, clicking, making some plays, and we made it happen.”

On 3rd-and-3, quarterback Trevor Siemian threw for Irwin despite cornerback Cam Taylor-Britt being draped all over him. Irwin leaped, snared the ball with one hand, and ignited a celebration as he landed, with offensive teammates mobbing him, and Taylor-Britt offered a congratulatory pat on the rear before running off the field.

“That was sick,” tight end Irv Smith Jr. said of the catch.

“The dude’s a freak,” Siemian added. “That was fun to watch.”

The Red Zone Lock Out awards the offense seven points for a touchdown and three points for a field goal. The defense gets seven points for a stop and four for limiting the possession to a field goal. The sides play to 18.

Irwin’s touchdown accounted for the first points, while Iosivas, the rookie sixth-round pick from Princeton, provided the game-winning points with his own leaping grab of a Jake Browning pass in the opposite corner of the end zone against tight coverage from Allan George.

An even bigger swarm of offensive players surrounded Iosivas after his grab.

“It was cool,” he said of the moment. “You want to make plays and help your team win, and in that situation, that was the game-winning play, so it was pretty hyped.”

Irwin said the offense had to run gassers after losing the defense each of the last two years. Asked if anything was on the line Thursday, right guard Alex Cappa said, “just football.”

“That was our first time truly moving the ball like that,” Cappa said. “The new joke around here, ‘It’s called football.’ Let’s play football. It’s way better than practicing. It was our most competitive part of camp so far, so it was fun.”

Trevor Siemian’s Turn

After Browning took all the first-team reps Monday and Tuesday, Siemian got his turn Thursday and will again Friday.

Siemian went 16 of 18 in the 11-on-11 periods, including the three Red Zone Lockout series to end practice. His first incompletion came on his fourth throw when the Bengals were in 12 personnel and under center on a short-yardage play. The first read wasn’t there, and Siemian slid in the pocket and threw it away.

After completing his next seven passes, Siemian threw into triple coverage for Ja’Marr Chase in the back corner of the end zone before finishing with six straight completions.

“There’s a couple plays I can think of I’d like a do-over on, but for the most part, pretty good. Shoot, guys like Trenton making those plays certain helps. Pretty good day from the offense. It was pretty clean for the most part.”

Attendance

Quarterback Joe Burrow (calf), running back Trayveon Williams (ankle), defensive end Tarell Basham (undisclosed), and defensive tackle Devonnsha Maxwell (undisclosed) did not practice.

Defensive end Trey Hendrickson, who is dealing with a lower body injury, again sat out of team drills, running sprints at times while those were happening. And cornerback Chidobe Awuzie (knee) continues to do his own conditioning work while the team periods are contested, as the Bengals bring him along slowly following November ACL surgery.

Odds and Ends

• Another of the impressive catches in the Red Zone Lockout period was turned in by Charlie Jones, who seemed to hit another gear to accelerate to get what appeared to be an overthrown pass. Jones went to the ground after the catch and injured his left shoulder. He was taken off on a cart for further evaluation and was sitting at his locker when practice ended, saying he was good.
• Chase continues to look incredible in camp. He caught a fastball on a slant pass with his hands away from his body, and the impact sounded like a shotgun. Chase also hauled in a Siemian deep ball against Sidney Jones IV and then played to the kids in the crowd by doing the Griddy.
• The pass rush didn’t affect the offense much at all, but Cam Sample had one of the few pressures on a play that would have been a sack.
• The curious case of third-round pick Jordan Battle continues, as he didn’t take any snaps in the team periods. Not even during the handful of third-string plays.
• Evan McPherson missed two field goals. One was from well inside 40 yards, and he pulled it left. The other was from beyond 50 and landed short and right. No reason for alarm, but it’s rare to see McPherson miss at all in practice, let alone twice.
• Left guard Cordell Volson had a false start but was not pulled from the drill. Volson only had two false starts as a rookie, with both coming in the first seven weeks of the season.