The Bengals welcome their draft class later this week at Friday's rookie minicamp and, like last year, their first pick, edge Cashius Howell, comes off the Texas A&M defensive line with its Midas touch position coach Tony Jerod-Eddie.

Three of his players were selected in the first two rounds of the 2025 NFL Draft, including the Bengals' Shemar Stewart, as well as Nic Scourton and Shemar Turner. Last month it was Howell, taken by the Bengals in the second round and leading another trio of Aggies defensive linemen selected in the first three rounds.

So, yeah, Jerod-Eddie knows what it looks like. He knew Howell had the look that last game of his junior year in the 2024 Las Vegas Bowl.

"USC," recalls Jerod-Eddie in the wake of the draft. "He wrecked the game."

It was a game without Stewart and Scourton, paving the way for Howell's first A&M start on a stage where he flashed an almost vicious versatility.

"You want guys who think they should be playing more," Jerod-Eddie says. "He just kept his head down. Didn't complain, and in that game he went crazy, and it was like, 'Oh man, he had just been waiting for this opportunity.' Absolutely wrecked the game.

"His game and his style of play translates great to the NFL level. We ran a pro-style defense, so he'll be ready to do whatever is asked. He's serious about his craft. He sits in the meetings, he takes tremendous notes. There's a switch he flips and he becomes highly competitive. Ultra-competitive. He'll tell you about it a little, too, which I love."

His Vegas Bowl line read a sack, a pass breakup, five tackles, and an interception that Jerod-Eddie says he damn near ran back for a touchdown.

"He played our boundary side end, but he ended up playing both in that game. He played the boundary side and the field side," Jerod-Eddie says. "It shows you he'll do whatever you need him to do.

"An incredible talent who plays the game the right way, who plays the game with a tenacity you want in a defensive lineman. He's a good football player, and a better guy. His life has not been easy by any stretch of the imagination."

Jerod-Eddie was there for Howell's latest tough chapter, the latest in a line that began as lightly recruited out of high school. But what happened last month seems to have impressed Jerod-Eddie more than the 2025 SEC Defensive Player of the Year award or the unanimous First-Team All-American nod at defensive end.

Jerod-Eddie had been invited to Howell's draft day party in Kansas City, where he was expected to celebrate a first-round selection by the end of the evening. But, instead, when the night was over, Howell found himself consoling partygoers while at Paycor Stadium the Bengals re-set their draft board for the second round and were delighted, anxious, and hopeful that Howell was at the top rungs.

"Just the way he handled that situation," Jerod-Eddie says. "I was feeling bad because this day was supposed to be so special, and everybody thought he was going on the first day.

"I said, 'Are you all right?' And he said, 'Coach, I'm all right. There's nothing to do. I've been the underdog.' … The maturity and how he handled that situation with grace, it just made me smile."

Jerod-Eddie calls it grace. And this is how much it meant.

"I changed my flight," Jerod-Eddie says. "And everybody was so happy when that call came."

More Cashius

College football strength guru Tommy Moffitt is a walking trivia answer.

As a legendary weight room coach at Tennessee, LSU and now Texas A&M, Moffitt is believed to be the only coach to work with both Joe Burrow and Peyton Manning as undergrads and pros. He's trained four of the Bengals' first picks in the last seven drafts. The most recent one from last month's draft, Howell, bears a striking resemblance in his approach in the weight room to All-Pro wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase, the Bengals' first-round pick in 2021.

"Ja'Marr Chase throws around the barbell like no other," Moffitt says. "You see those videos. He's in a dungeon by himself or (with) some guy. That's how Cashius is. What Ja'Marr is doing is very hard. That's 275 to 315 pounds, and there are 315-pounders that can't do what he's doing. He's not afraid, and Cashius isn't afraid, either."

Among the many things that impressed Moffitt about Howell during his two years in College Station was how he got the most out of the teeming power-conference benefits that weren't available in the same amount at Bowling Green.

For instance, a cafeteria stocked with menus on top of snacks. Supplements. Strength coaches. Howell would talk about it with Moffitt. How A&M had all these wonderful things to give players the edge. The defensive line had two strength coaches. So did the offensive line/tight ends. So did the safeties and cornerbacks.

"He came out of a different style at Bowling Green, and when he got here, some of the stuff he wasn't good at," Moffitt says of the different philosophies of the weight rooms. "There are guys who if they can't do something, won't do it.

"But Cashius would. Rep after rep after rep until he got it right."

The result is this: "He's so fast, and he studies film. He can bend like no other. He gets so low."

A linchpin of "The Moffitt Method," is high intensity, and he had seen and felt enough from Howell that by last season he had Moffitt's full attention. This is what Moffitt says he told the NFL scouts when they came calling:

"I watched his every rep this past year in the weight room. If we weren't in a team setting for our runs, I watched every sprint he took. He never took a rep off.

"It's because guys like him don't come along very often," Moffitt says of the attention. "The opportunity to watch a guy do an exercise or a rep that says he's trying to break the bar in half. and he was like that very day."

Slants and Screens

When Moffitt was at LSU, the scouts came to ask him about Burrow, soon to be the 2020 draft's overall No. 1 pick to the Bengals.

He told them when it came to the weight room, Burrow and Manning were pretty much the same guy. Twenty-two years between No. 1 picks, and they both shared an almost frightening competitiveness and intensity.

"You had to watch Joe in the weight room. Joe would tear himself apart," Moffitt says. "You had to take a governor, or a harness, or a bridle, or whatever you want to call it on Joe Burrow every day in the weight room because he'd do something crazy every day." …

Moffitt had a nice visit from Bengals edge Shermar Stewart during the offseason made even nicer when Stewart gave him an autographed game-worn jersey.

"It was a great visit, and he sounded great," Moffitt says. "Excited. He was excited about getting back up there for the offseason." …