With the NFL scouting combine safely tucked into last week, we offer the first Bengals.com Media Mock Draft of 2026.
Consisting of our board of beat scribes and one draft expert, CBS Sports' Pete Prisco, we get you to No. 10 and head for home like the Ol' Lefthander.
If you don't like it, wait two weeks. There'll be another one about 10 days into free agency.
1.RAIDERS _ QB Fernando Mendoza, Indiana; Vincent Bonsignore, Las Vegas Review-Journal
A little Joe Burrow in him when he met the combine media. Without the chair.
2.JETS _ LB Arvell Reese, Ohio State; Rich Cimini, ESPN.com
With no quarterback in sight and edge rusher Jermaine Johnson dispatched to the Titans, this looks like the position. Who remains to be seen.
3.CARDINALS _ DE David Bailey, Texas Tech; Darren Urban, azcardinals.com
It looks like either a pass rusher or a pass protector here. New Cardinals coach Mike LaFleur's brother Matt went with pass rusher Rashan Gary for his first pick as head coach of the Packers.
4.TITANS _ DE Rueben Bain Jr., Miami; Paul Kuharsky, paulkuharsky.com
They're hoping Jermaine Johnson is the first in a wave of pass rushers they acquire in free agency and here.
5.GIANTS _ LB Sonny Styles, Ohio State; Tom Rock, Newsday
We were hoping Styles would slide invisibly through a maze of quarterbacks and receivers. There is no maze and Styles is no longer invisible with his monster mash combine. As Rock says, new Giants head coach John Harbaugh (that's still weird to write) started his Ravens tenure with Ray Lewis and has had a stud linebacker pretty much ever since. He continues with the Giants.
6.BROWNS _WR Carnell Tate, Ohio State; Tony Grossi, ESPN Cleveland
This one could very well change before the draft if the Browns can land someone like wide receiver Brian Thomas Jr., in a trade or in free agency. Keep an eye on emerging Georgia left tackle Monroe Freeling for a Cleveland offensive line that allowed the Bengals six sacks in last season's finale at Paycor. That could be viewed as a tad high for him. But last week in Indy, Freeling became the first player ever at the combine to go 6-7, weigh 315 pounds, run less than five seconds in the 40-yard dash, jump more than 30 inches, and hit a broad jump longer than nine feet.
7.COMMANDERS _ S Caleb Downs, Ohio State; John Keim, ESPN.com
Washington adds one of the smartest players in the draft and a potential playmaker. They need both.
8.SAINTS _ RB Jeremiyah Love, Notre Dame; Jeff Duncan, New Orleans Times-Picayune.
When we did our Jan. 17 walkthrough Media Mock, Duncan was all in on Love. After the 212-pound Love turned the combine into Valentine's Day with a 4.36-second 40-yarder and stuck around to catch routes as a receiver, he really is all in as a fit for the least explosive offense in the league.
9.CHIEFS _ DT Caleb Banks, Florida; Pete Prisco, CBS Sports
They take a big body to pair next to Chris Jones.
10.BENGALS _ CB Mansoor Delane, LSU; Geoff Hobson, Bengals.com
Sonny. All Three Downs. Bain of a quarterback's existence. All gone.
The Bengals and Chiefs, who are looking for defense, too, may be thinking this is an eight-player first round and try to move down and pick up a pick.
Even though the Bengals have two excellent young man-to-man cornerbacks in Dax Hill and DJ Turner II, you still have to count cornerbacks, and Delane and Tennessee's Jermod McCoy are legit top ten guys. Delane is cleaner because he's healthier, yet McCoy tore his ACL more than a year ago and looks ready to regain his form.
No, Delane isn't the guy they need up front. But if you can't trade down, you can't make him up, either, and reach. But he is a guy they need at that spot:
An elite prospect at a premium position who is plug-and-play on a depth chart that, at this point, does not have Cam Taylor-Britt behind Hill and Turner and needs a solid No. 3 who can play outside off the bench. With the Bengals expected to try and extend Hill and Turner heading into their contract years, Delane wields value.
Corner is one of those spots they need more than you think.
Call it the Andrew Whitworth Rule. Otherwise known as take-the-best-guy-on-the-board-at-a-premium-position-no-matter-need. You have to take an LSU guy invoking the Law of Whit on the 20th anniversary of his draft.
That axiom came out of the 2006 Draft, a weekend the Bengals arrived at with one of the best tackle tandems in the league in perennial Pro Football Hall of Fame finalist Willie Anderson on the right and Levi Jones on the left. And, the Bengals were about to enter into extensions with both before Opening Day.
Yet, in the second round at the 55th pick, there sat LSU's Whitworth, a 6-7 behemoth who mystified the NFL scouts. Many thought he was an NFL guard. Maybe a right tackle. But after studying how he dominated SEC pass rushers at left tackle, Bengals offensive line coach Paul Alexander was adamant he could play it in the NFL.
So even though the Bengals had two of the best tackles in the NFL, they grabbed another tackle believing you couldn't have too many pass protectors in the blitzing and biting AFC North. Whitworth became one of the great leaders and players in club history, an anchor at left tackle of six playoff teams and a certain Bengals Ring of Honor member.
We're not saying Delane is Whitworth, or Hill or Turner. We're simply saying the Whitworth pick shows the flexibility and depth you get by adding to a position you already have two solid starters in Hill and Turner.
The 6-0, 193-pound Delane, who transferred from Virginia Tech, can relieve Hill and Turner right now and do a little bit of everything as the Pro Football Focus Defensive Player of the Year:
Third among FBS corners with a 91 grade who allowed a mere 37.1% completion rate into his area. Plus, a 26.7 passer rating against was the best mark for a Power Four cornerback. Plus, Delane allowed no touchdown passes in '25.
He showed AFC North moxie at the combine ("I'd rather play middle linebacker"), not to mention flexibility worthy of an Al Golden defense. PFF says in the last two years, Delane lined up an average of more than five snaps per game as an in-the-box safety freelancing as a hybrid. He was also used in the slot, at times, in Baton Rouge last season.
Now, the Bengals could also move back five to ten slots and, according to the crush of big boards out there in cyberspace, still get a shot at an edge like 20-year-old defensive line chess piece Keldric Faulk of Auburn, Clemson defensive tackle Peter Woods, or Clemson edge T.J. Parker, and then at No. 41 in the second round eye a defensive tackle like Georgia's Christen Miller or edges like Michigan's Derrick Moore or Missouri's Zion Young, or fast-rising Texas Tech linebacker Jacob Rodriguez if he's rising that fast.
If it unfolds this way, the two best tackles are available. But, like 20 years ago, the Bengals love their tackles, and it's assumed they want to extend both left tackle Orlando Brown Jr., and right tackle Amarius Mims. Unlike 20 years ago, this is the first round. And, Bengals fans no doubt recall in the 2006 first round they picked one of their best cornerbacks ever in Johnathan Joseph.
Yet, the tackle availability of Utah's Spencer Fano and Miami's Francis Mauigoa at No. 10 on this board could help the Bengals drum up something.
If not, we invoke the Law of Whit.
