Bengals Find Safety With Youth

Rookies Marvin White and Chinedum Ndukwe lined up as the starting safeties for Cincinnati’s interstate battle against Cleveland.  This is a sign of things to come in the Bengals’ secondary for 2008.

White and Ndukwe have intrigued coaches throughout the summer and into the regular season.  They quickly established themselves as backups behind Madieu Williams and Dexter Jackson.  Williams will be a free agent this coming spring.  He’ll likely be overpaid by somebody else.  Jackson is a stop-gap veteran with limitations.  That means the Bengals could go into the 2008 season with White and Ndukwe as full-time starters. 

White has displayed fairly good speed and loves to hit people.  He’s very strong in run support and plays with a lot of intensity.  White just needs more experience and repetitions this spring to improve his command of the defense and learning how to recognize things better on the field.

Ndukwe has a better feel for the mental side of the game and has flashed the ability to make plays.  He covers a lot of ground and displays good burst to the ball in the air.  He plays hard and has good size in the box. 

Overall, the Bengals are developing a young core in the secondary with another rookie – cornerback Leon Hall and second-year man Jonathan Joseph.  Hall displayed good toughness to re-route receivers and plays instinctively for a rookie.  Joseph is a good athlete and flashes a lot of ability as a cover guy, but still needs more repetitions to continue working on his instincts.  Joseph was rusty for much of the year after returning from a broken foot.