The Bengals defense answered Thursday with the kind of finish it could not make last November. In a joint practice with the Bears, Cincinnati closed both last-minute drills with interceptions, turning a one-point lead into a defensive statement after Caleb Williams had pushed the Bears in a red-zone work period.
That matters now because the same matchup still sits fresh in the background. The Bengals once could not hold a one-point lead with 54 seconds left against Williams at Paycor Stadium last November, and this time the coaches handed them a one-point edge with four minutes left in the drill. The offense burned clock for a first down before giving the ball back just before the two-minute warning, and the defense finished the job from there.
Demetrius Knight Jr. said the Bears game last season was a turning point, the kind of night that forced the unit to look in the mirror and learn how to finish. He said the group got closer after that loss and was forged in the fire, with new pieces added to that work. Thursday’s practice gave that idea some proof. Myles Murphy strung together back-to-back sacks of Williams, then Dexter Lawrence II tipped a screen to himself for an interception. After that pick, Evan McPherson connected on a 45-yardish field goal with 1:15 left.
But the picture was not clean enough to call it complete. Williams still found touchdown throws to Colston Loveland and Kalif Raymond in the red zone, which is why the praise for late-game finishing sits beside a defense that was not airtight every snap. The Bengals did force the last word, yet the Bears showed they could still score when the field shortened and the windows tightened.
Ted Karras said the defensive line validated what had been a hard month for the team, and he called it one of the toughest camps of his five with the Bengals. That kind of line says as much about the stretch around practice as the practice itself. The Bengals had spent last November trying to recover from a loss in which the Bears ran for 283 yards, and in the final eight games after that, Cincinnati’s defense allowed an average of 16 points, a sign that the correction was not just talk. Thursday suggested that finish has carried into a new setting, even if the red-zone giveaways kept the evaluation honest.
There was also a more personal test inside the work. Amarius Mims said he has been dealing with Cashius Howell all camp and called him a rookie making grown-man plays. That is the sort of opponent-driven detail that usually tells the truest story in August: the Bengals are not just praising their own defense, they are feeling it from the other side too. Thursday’s takeaway-heavy finish showed where the unit wants to be. The red-zone touchdowns showed where it still has to get cleaner before the next real snap with the Bears.
