Donteh Meyers is about to get the call he has chased for years. The 26-year-old receiver is slated to play for the Cincinnati Bengals against the Detroit Lions in Thursday’s preseason opener, and if he gets on the field, it will be his first taste of NFL action.
That is why his name is drawing attention now. Meyers did not arrive here as a polished prospect. He was a zero-star recruit out of high school in Georgia, spent three years at Presbyterian College in South Carolina and went undrafted. After an unsuccessful tryout with the Atlanta Falcons, he had to find another path.
He found it in Canada. A trainer named Manny Rodriguez connected Trevor Harris with Meyers for a tryout with the Saskatchewan Roughriders, and the club gave him a futures contract after seeing enough to keep him around. Meyers first showed up wearing 74, then got 88 the next day, a small but telling sign that he had earned a better look.
The production followed. In 2024, he caught 24 passes for 349 yards and one touchdown in four games. Last season, he took a bigger step, catching 65 passes for 1,056 yards and eight touchdowns while helping the Roughriders win the Grey Cup title over the Montreal Alouettes. That résumé explains why the Bengals wanted to keep watching him in camp.
Still, the gap between a strong run in the CFL and a place on an NFL roster is the point. Meyers is only slated for a preseason appearance, not a spot on the 53-man roster, and he has to turn limited snaps into proof that he can play at this level. Bengals offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher said Meyers has “real juice,” and coach Zac Taylor said the team noticed him in the spring, but both comments stop short of any guarantee.
Trevor Harris has long said Meyers has the kind of edge that shows up in the grind, noting that players who come from Division II and fight through the muck are often tough mentally and physically. He also praised Meyers for staying after practice, asking how to sharpen routes and finding space in zones. That is the version of him the Bengals are now testing in public.
Thursday brings the next checkpoint. If Meyers gets on the field in Detroit, it will not settle his NFL future, but it will show whether the path that started with a zero-star label in Georgia can hold up under the league lights.
