Day 2 of the 2025 NFL Draft is over, and the Cincinnati Bengals have brought in two more rookies to join the teams—second-round pick Demetrius Knight Jr. and third-round pick Dylan Fairchild.

The Bengals selected a defensive player in the second round before finally switching to offense in the third. Here are some winners and losers in the Bengals’ organization, both players and coaches.

Winners

Al Golden

Al Golden’s first year as the team’s defensive coordinator is going to be filled with young(ish) talent fresh out of college. They hired him to develop this talent quickly and turn around a defense that played a large part in keeping the Bengals out of the playoffs in 2024.

Not only is Golden getting an extremely talented edge rusher, but a seasoned linebacker in Knight, who should compete for a starting role right away.

The Bengals’ locker room

Knight is 25 years old and has been playing college football since 2019. Fans may not like the idea of drafting a rookie who is older than Ja’Marr Chase, but one thing they can’t be upset about is the potential impact he could have on the locker room.

Knight was a big locker room guy, defensive leader and captain in his single year at South Carolina, and is going to step into a locker room that was humbled by a disastrous season.

Joe Burrow

Hey, what’s the point of having a top-tier quarterback if you’re going to let him get hit all the time? The Bengals didn’t get any consistency from either guard in 2024, and they cut ties with right guard Alex Cappa earlier in the offseason.

After the Bengals spent their first two selections of the 2025 NFL Draft, they turned to the offensive line by grabbing guard Dylan Fairchild out of Georgia in the third round. It appears as if the Bengals’ front office was not content with some combination of Cordell Volson, Cody Ford, and Lucas Patrick on either side of Ted Karras.

Scott Peters

The Bengals’ new offensive line coach has an experienced center and bookend tackles, but both guard positions were huge question marks. They didn’t address the position in the first two rounds, but they found Fairchild in the third. Now Peters is going to get a strong, capable blocker to mold into one of the team’s starting guards.

Geno Stone

A lot of eyes were on Xavier Watts as the Bengals went on the clock with the No. 81 overall pick in the draft. The secondary struggled in 2024, and Watts, being on Golden’s National Championship defense, seemed like an obvious pick.

Instead, the Bengals opted to go with Fairchild in hopes of solidifying the interior of the offensive line (which needed to be done), which is good news for Stone.

The Bengals brought the former Raven in to fix the position before the 2024 season, but he was underwhelming throughout the majority of the season. At least for now, it seems the Bengals are willing to give him another year.

Losers

Germaine Pratt

Pratt requested a trade not long after the team separated ways with Lou Anarumo. There hasn’t been much movement on the topic, but the general consensus is Pratt is done with Cincinnati.

Any tiny glimmer of hope the two sides could repair their relationship was snuffed out when the Bengals opted to use their second-round pick on Knight. He’s obviously Pratt’s replacement.

Oren Burks

The Bengals signed Burks in free agency after he was thrust into the starting role late in the season for the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles. This was after Pratt’s trade request, of course, and some may have thought he would be named the starter next to Logan Wilson.

Now they can think again. It’s too early to declare Knight the starter either, but they selected the linebacker in the second round when there were still many other available players they were rumored to be interested in.

Maema Njongmeta

Njongmeta was a fan favorite last season after he laid some wood in the preseason. He even made the 53-man roster as an undrafted free agent. Special teams were his main contribution, but he’s a downhill, run-stopping, instinctive linebacker.

So is Knight, and this selection, along with the signing of Burks, could spell the end of Njongmeta’s time in Cincinnati, at least on the active roster.

Cordell Volson, Cody Ford, Lucas Patrick

The Bengals let Cappa go earlier in the offseason and brought in Patrick, a long-time journeyman with experience at center and guard, but that left most fans underwhelmed. After all, Volson was a large part of the problem in 2024, and until now, it appeared as if the Bengals were going to stick with him, or at least give him a chance to keep his job, in 2025.

He, along with Ford and Patrick, will all likely make the final 53-man roster, but now they have some competition. Fairchild is a former wrestler who’s a freak in the weight room, and he’s not going to be coming to Cincinnati content to sit on the bench.

The secondary

The Bengals were awful against the pass in 2024, and in a conference with Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, and Josh Allen, they need a secondary that can hold its own against elite quarterbacks. With Xavier Watts and other defensive backs still available, they opted to go with the offensive line.

I’m not saying it was the wrong move, but, as of now, the Bengals secondary looks just like the one that struggled last season.

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Who are your Bengals’ winners and losers from the second day of the NFL Draft?