Nose Tackle · Cincinnati Bengals

Dexter Lawrence

No. 97 · 8th season

The Bengals needed a wall up front. Dexter Lawrence is that.

There are players who make a defense better, and then there are players who change what a defense is allowed to be. Dexter Lawrence is the second kind.

He lines up at defensive tackle — the interior of the defensive line, the spot where games are decided in the dirt before anyone else notices. Multiple outlets have placed him among the five best at his position in the entire league. That is not a small thing. At a position where recognition is rare and praise is slower, that kind of ranking means people have been watching closely.

Now he is in Cincinnati. The Bengals have added him as a defensive piece, and the math is straightforward: a team that wanted to be harder to move against just got significantly harder to move against.

What a player like Lawrence does doesn't always show up cleanly on a broadcast. But the offense feels it on every snap. His presence makes everything around him easier — for the linebackers, for the corners, for the whole structure of the defense.

The Bengals made a bet on that presence. Now we find out what it buys them.

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