Jonathan Allen is bringing a Nick Saban mentality to the Bengals defense
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The Cincinnati Bengals have spent much of the offseason trying to fix a defense that simply wasn’t good enough. Jonathan Allen is making sure nobody starts celebrating the finished product before the work is done.
Allen, now entering his 10th NFL season, has brought more than an accomplished résumé to Cincinnati. The two-time Pro Bowler is also bringing some of the lessons he learned playing for Nick Saban at Alabama, including Saban’s famous disdain for “rat poison.”
In other words, don’t start believing all the nice things people are saying about you. That message seems particularly appropriate for a Bengals defense generating considerably more optimism than it did a year ago.
“For me, I try to keep it stupid simple,” Allen told Charlie Clifford. “I try to focus on day-by-day, try to take it play by play, and you’ll end up where you want to be one day. You focus on the little things you’ve got to do to get to the ultimate goal.”
That’s a philosophy Allen learned long before arriving in Cincinnati. Allen played four seasons at Alabama, where he became one of the best defensive players in college football. As a senior captain in 2016, he recorded 16 tackles for loss and 10.5 sacks and was a unanimous first-team All-American and SEC Defensive Player of the Year. He also won the Bronko Nagurski Trophy, Chuck Bednarik Award, and Ted Hendricks Award.
Allen was part of three College Football Playoff teams at Alabama and helped the Crimson Tide win the national championship following the 2015 season. Now, a decade later, some of those lessons are still showing up.
“This defense has a lot of potential,” Allen said. “Some people hear ‘potential’ and get excited. I just hear a group that hasn’t done anything yet.
“Our job hasn’t even started yet. Until the games start flying, we’ve got to keep our heads down and do the work.”
That’s the kind of message the Bengals hoped Allen would bring when they signed him in March. Cincinnati added the veteran defensive tackle after his one-year stint with the Minnesota Vikings, where he started all 17 games in 2025 and finished with 68 tackles, seven tackles for loss and 3.5 sacks.
Before that, Allen spent eight seasons in Washington after being selected in the first round of the 2017 NFL Draft. He earned consecutive Pro Bowl selections following the 2021 and 2022 seasons and enters 2026 with 469 career tackles, 67 tackles for loss and 45.5 sacks in 126 regular-season games. That experience matters for a Bengals defense undergoing a significant makeover.
When Allen signed with Cincinnati, he made it clear that winning was one of the attractions. He said the Bengals were one of the places where he believed he could compete for a Super Bowl, pointing specifically to the opportunity created for the defense by playing alongside Joe Burrow and Cincinnati’s offense.
But Allen also understood that Cincinnati needed improvement on the other side of the football. So far, there have been encouraging signs.
The Bengals opened the preseason with a 16-14 victory over the Detroit Lions, with Al Golden’s defense creating turnovers and getting contributions from both veterans and young players. Jordan Battle and Russ Yeast came away with interceptions, while rookie pass rushers Cashius Howell and Landon Robinson were among the young defenders who flashed.
Allen isn’t interested in handing out trophies for August practices or preseason promise, though. Allen spent enough time in Tuscaloosa to understand Saban’s lesson: Potential doesn’t win anything. Neither does praise.
Production does.
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