Mar 31, 2025; Palm Beach, FL, USA; Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor answers questions from the media during the NFL Annual League Meeting at The Breakers.

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What Draft Picks Do the Cincinnati Bengals Have in 2025? All Cincinnati Bengals 2025 NFL Draft Picks per Round

The Bengals need to focus on defensive improvements this draft!

Mar 31, 2025; Palm Beach, FL, USA; Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor answers questions from the media during the NFL Annual League Meeting at The Breakers.

The Cincinnati Bengals have long been associated with a team that doesn’t spend on retaining top-quality talent. That notion may now be changing soon as the Bengals surprised the league by finalizing new contracts for both their wide receivers Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins. Chase was made the highest-earning non-QB while Higgins became the highest-earning WR2. The core of the Bengals offense with Joe Burrow under center is now intact for the foreseeable future.

This offense now has enough juice to put up a bunch of points week in and week out. Football, however, needs an equally strong defense in order to achieve success. As the saying goes, defense wins Championships, and that is where Cincinnati is in a big mess. Last year, the Bengals dug themselves into a hole at the start of the season going 0-3 in the first three weeks.

In fact, Cincinnati finished strong only towards the end of the season with 5 wins in a row, but prior to that held a 4-8 record through week 13. The main cause of concern being the defense giving up an abundance of total yards and points. Getting back to the postseason will be a challenge, especially with the AFC North containing the Ravens and Steelers as strong contenders.

What Are the Bengals’ Draft Picks in 2025?

Head Coach Zac Taylor and the Bengals will have to use their picks cautiously this time around. Cincinnati has only 6 selections as of now and unless any trades take place, this is the number they will have to contend with. The Bengals will have one pick in all of the first 6 rounds while they have no selections to look forward to in round 7 of the draft.

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Furthermore, Cincinnati’s first-round selection comes in at 17th overall which is not the worst spot to be in given that this draft class is quite strong in defensive positions such as edge rushers. The Bengals need a dominant pass rusher even more so with Trey Hendrickson’s future still undecided.

Picks	Round	Pick No.	Own / Via
1	1	17	Own
2	2	49	Own
3	3	81	Own
4	4	119	Own
5	5	153	Own
6	6	193	Own

Positional Needs for the Bengals

As mentioned previously, Cincinnati needs to focus on their defense and the edge is a priority position for sure. Ironically for the Bengals, Hendrickson finished as the league leader with 17.5 sacks last season, but as a unit, Cincinnati finished near the bottom of the league with just 36 sacks on the year. This year the edge position is very strong so finding a quality player at number 17 overall should not be much of a problem.

Cincinnati will also need to bolster its other levels of defense by bringing in a linebacker although they did sign Oren Burks fresh off a Super Bowl win with the Eagles. However, Cincinnati may choose to first strengthen its secondary; they ranked 25th in the league last season.

As you can see, overall, the Bengals need to have a great defensive draft to turn around their fortunes from the previous season. The limited number of picks that they have might work against them, but if they are able to retain the services of Hendrickson, then they can make use of this draft to build around him.

2025 nfl draft

Cincinnati Bengals

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Devavrat Kulkarni

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I am a content writer for the NFL team, and joined The Playoffs after working with Sportskeeda and NFL Analysis as an NFL writer. After starting my professional career as a French-to-English translator, working as a content writer is a new adventure for me. I started out in the sports media field for two main reasons: my love for sports in general, especially the NFL, NBA, and Tennis, as well as my passion for writing. The best part of this job is that I get to write a variety of pieces with the freedom to explore content from various angles. It also enables me to stay up to date with the sporting world, which otherwise can be difficult to do in the day-to-day grind. In a world full of chaos, sports unite and entertain like nothing else!