Ja’Marr Chase and Josh Newton stand out as Bengals close camp with situational work before Bears joint practice

The Cincinnati Bengals used their final all-day training-camp practice of the week Tuesday to tighten details before a key set of live reps against an NFC North opponent. According to the team’s training camp report, head coach Zac Taylor led the session on the Kettering Health Practice Fields in warm, sunny conditions, featuring a series of situational team drills designed to mirror what matters most when the preseason work shifts from installation to execution.

Ja’Marr Chase drew attention in the team’s account of the day’s standouts, highlighted as part of a polished offensive push during the Bengals’ tuneup stretch. The report framed the practice as a “final tuneup” before Thursday’s joint scrimmage with the Bears, emphasizing that this portion of camp is about doing the right things in the right moments, not just moving the ball during standard work.

On the defensive side, Josh Newton was also noted as a player who stood out in Tuesday’s practice. The Bengals’ write-up tied Newton’s impact to the broader theme of the day: group-focused work meant to test coverage and rush decisions under controlled but competitive timing. The club’s emphasis on situational drills suggests Cincinnati was aiming to improve responsiveness across the board, including how defenders adjust their reads and how they coordinate in pass and run-related assignments.

A central point in the report was the plan to use Thursday’s Bears joint practice as the next major step in the Bengals’ camp progression. Joint sessions typically serve as a bridge between practice-format football and true matchup football, with both teams seeking clearer answers on assignments, tempo, and communication. For Cincinnati, the idea of finishing camp with an all-day practice built around game-style scenarios indicates the staff wants players to enter the joint work already fluent in situational expectations.

Cincinnati’s camp routine, as described by the team, also points to coaching focus late in the calendar. The report characterizes Tuesday as a busy, all-day plan featuring multiple drill phases, which is consistent with how teams generally evaluate whether their preparation matches their intentions once live opponents are introduced. In that sense, Tuesday’s work functioned as a checkpoint, a chance to clean up errors before the Bengals and Bears go head-to-head in the final look at live execution before the preseason schedule takes over.

What to watch next is how the Bengals carry the themes from Tuesday into Thursday. If Chase and Newton continue to be singled out in the joint-practice environment, it would suggest Cincinnati’s best offensive and defensive habits are translating into live competition. Even without individual storyline moments, the more important question for the Bengals will be whether the situational emphasis from Tuesday shows up in repeated execution, especially during third-down and red-zone style sequences that usually shape coaches’ takeaways from joint scrimmages.