Dan Hoard’s 5 questions going into training camp and the 2025 Bengals season

Dan Hoard’s 5 questions going into training camp and the 2025 Bengals season
Cincy Jungle Cincy Jungle

These are some of the biggest questions going into Bengals training camp.

Cincinnati Bengals training camp begins Wednesday morning on the Kettering Health Practice Fields behind Paycor Stadium. Like every NFL team, there are questions surrounding this team going into training camp and the 2025 season. (Yes, even the reigning Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles have questions going into training camp.)

Recently, Bengals play-by-play announcer Dan Hoard asked seven beat reporters who cover the Bengals five identical questions about the team ahead of training camp and the upcoming season.

This was an episode of the Bengals Booth Podcast, where Dan had on Ben Baby (ESPN NFL Nation), Kelsey Conway (Cincinnati Enquirer), Paul Dehner Jr. (The Athletic), Jay Morrison (AllBengals.com and Sports Illustrated), Mike Petraglia (CLNS Media), James Rapien (Locked On Bengals) and Richard Skinner (Local 12) to hear their differing answers on these questions.

Now, I’m going to give you my answers to these questions. Again, there is no right or wrong answer to any of these questions. And all of us at Cincy Jungle want to hear from you and what your answers are, so feel free to comment on this post and spark some conversations.

1. What is your biggest question going into training camp?

My biggest question is how much different training camp and the preseason will actually look. Head coach Zac Taylor said Monday at the Bengals media luncheon that the plan is for the starters to play much more in the preseason, but how much more will they actually play?

There is a fine line between the starters playing more and risking injury in exhibition games. The last thing the Bengals need, on top of everything that they’re dealing with surrounding Trey Hendrickson and Shemar Stewart, is for a premier player to get hurt in an exhibition game.

Still, though, Joe Burrow has talked about how he wants to play in the preseason to get live game reps under his belt before the regular season starts. Considering the Bengals will have two new starters on their offensive line, Burrow needs those in-game reps to get comfortable playing with them.

Burrow and the Bengals need to be ready to fire out of the gates in Week 1, regardless of whether Trey Hendrickson and/or Shemar Stewart are here. One way to ensure that they are is to have the starters, including Joe Burrow, play in the preseason.

In addition, how much different will training camp look? For starters, practices are going to be in the morning this season as opposed to the afternoon in seasons past.

Through previous seasons, there’s been a perception that Zac Taylor had created a country club-like atmosphere at training camp, perhaps to ensure his team wasn’t completely beat up by the time the push for the Playoffs came. But other teams, like the Kansas City Chiefs, run extremely physical and demanding training camps and are healthy by the time December rolls around.

Again, the Bengals need to do enough these next...