Desmond Ridder, the Bengals' new No. 3 quarterback reared in Louisville before coming of age in Cincinnati, is not only deeply familiar with the ebbs and flows of a river city but also the bobbing and weaving of Joe Burrow’s footwork.

Ridder shares the same quarterback trainer with Burrow, and former Bengals quarterback Jordan Palmer makes sure they're watching plenty of Seamless Joe tape.

Starting at the bottom.

"More so on the feet. How to move efficiently to the ground with no wasted motion, no wasted movement," said Ridder as he checked into the Bengals training camp Tuesday at Paycor Stadium. "Just seeing the way he moves efficiently. The way he moves in the pocket. The way the ball comes out of his hand.

"I'm excited to learn from a guy who has played at the highest level. He's played in the Super Bowl. In my short career, I haven't been with anybody who has done that."

Maybe a brief career, but it's been crowded for a guy who doesn't turn 26 for another month. As Ridder heads into his fourth NFL season with his fourth team, he's already been drafted in the third round, anointed an Opening Day starter, benched and traded. At this point, he's open to learning from Burrow and his unquestioned No. 2, Jake Browning.

"It's an opportunity. Just to get an opportunity to go out here and play the game that I love," Ridder said. "A lot of people can have it taken away with one play or whatever it may be. For me to have the opportunity to come in here and play football with two great guys in front of me, just another chance for me to go prove myself and continue to get better in this game."

If Ridder sounds like a nice fit in quarterback coach Brad Kragthorpe’s room of gym rats, he is. Already a Queen City icon, he was the guy who led the University of Cincinnati to the playoffs as the first group of five team to make the postseason, as well as one of the last major unbeatens to make it. Ridder was already known in high school as a student of the game when he would sometimes wear a GoPro camera on his helmet at practice and later watch the video afterward.

"He's super sharp and intelligent," former UC quarterbacks coach Gino Guidugli told SI's Pat Forde during that collegiate run. "We demand a lot of our quarterbacks—a lot is on his shoulders. He handles it well. He's not a kid who's going to make the same mistake twice."

When Bengals offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher saw Ridder work out Sunday with fellow veterans Tyler Huntley and C.J. Beathard, he saw some things.

"He's a young player with physical gifts who by all accounts is smart, is diligent, goes about his work the right way, is a good person, is going to be a net positive contributor to the group," Pitcher says.

Drew The Dean

If you mention Tyler Huntley, you have to mention Sam Hubbard. Huntley was the man who was snapped the ball that ended up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame when Hubbard took Huntley's fumble all the way on a 98-yard dash that is the longest postseason fumble return ever.

With Hubbard retired, that makes tight end Drew Sample The Dean of the Bengals with a team-high 78 games, the only man left from head coach Zac Taylor’s first club in 2019.

As Sample checked in for his seventh training camp Tuesday, he joked that Hubbard left him all the papers.

"I want to play a lot longer (than seven years), but I know to be able to play on the same team, in the same offense, and to see things evolve and grow is pretty special," Sample said. "Obviously, we have elite pass catchers with Joe, but I think there are other aspects we've evolved at and tried to get better at over the past four, five, six years."

Sample, the last man standing here who has caught a pass from both Burrow and Andy Dalton, is a second-round 2019 draft pick who has proven to a versatile blocking specialist in what became the Joe Burrow offense a year later.

"Ever since Joe came in, we've been able to put so much on his plate, and he sees everything so well," Sample said. "It's helped a lot in our flexibility. We can do a lot of different things, and that has slowly evolved as we've gone through it. He's a master at it, and we've got a lot of the same guys on the team, and that helps us moving guys around like Ja’Marr (Chase), Tee (Higgins), Mike (Gesicki). Really smart players who can do a lot of different things. It might look complicated from the outside. But for us, we've been here so long, it's not really that hard."

Slants and Screens

Rookie center Seth McLaughlin, undrafted after tearing his Achilles late in Ohio State's national title run, says he's close to getting back on the field. McLaughlin, rated ESPN's best player not drafted, stayed in Cincinnati to work with Bengals rehab chief Nick Cosgray over the six-week break, and it looks to have paid dividends.

"I feel like I'm very close to being out there," McLaughlin said. "I'm running full speed, pushing sleds, doing football movements on the rehab field. Just getting back up to the point where I can take on that 340-pound nose tackle."

He's not there yet, and the Bengals have no plans to push him. We're probably talking weeks away and not days …

As the Bengals try to get NFL sack leader Trey Hendrickson and No. 1 pick Shemar Stewart in the fold, they reached a rookie deal over the weekend with one of their projected starters. Second-rounder Demetrius Knight Jr., who lined up next to linebacker Logan Wilson all voluntary camp, arrived early for Tuesday's 12:30 welcome back team meeting. Even though there was no practice, he treated it like it was the morning of a practice and had a devotional book opened in his locker.

"I read it every morning. It gets your brain right," Knight said. "When it's seven, eight o'clock in the morning and there's rap music going already. Usually, I ride over here with a little worship music from Passion City, and then read my devotion here, and then I'm pretty much dialed in after that." ….