Jessie Bates’ likely Bengals departure marks notable change for player and team
The abruptness and finality of any NFL playoff loss tend to scrape raw the emotions of the men who sink everything they have and all that they are into a chase for glory.
Add that the Bengals were eight seconds away from extending their pursuit Sunday night at Arrowhead Stadium, then in an instant realized they were more than eight months away from simply returning to the starting line to begin anew, and the devastation inside the visitors locker room was understandably weighty.
Yet in one corner of the cramped room, it hit even heavier. Bengals safety Jessie Bates wasn’t simply wrestling the sudden cessation of a successful season. He was processing the realization that his career, his life even, would never feel the same once he covered the 30 paces to the door exiting into a cold, concrete tunnel leading out of the stadium.
“Obviously it’s emotional,” Bates said before confirming the tears in his eyes were a product of both the ramifications of the loss and spending three hours in subfreezing, windy conditions.
“I’ve been able to build really close bonds in the locker room, in the training room, everywhere in Cincinnati,” Bates said. “With some reporters. Everybody. Any time something like that comes to an end, it hits a little different.”
The end of Bates’ time in Cincinnati isn’t as official as the epitaph of the Bengals’ season after a 23-20 loss to the Chiefs in AFC Championship Game.
But in Bates’ mind, it is. And it stings.
The Bengals made him a second-round pick less than five years ago, instantly inserted him as a starter and identified him as a core piece of the franchise’s future. Seven short months later, when the organization experienced its greatest upheaval in nearly two decades with the parting of ways from head coach Marvin Lewis, the earth around Bates’ feet never shook.
Yes, Bates would have a new head coach and a third defensive coordinator after his first, Teryl Austin, was fired midway through his rookie season. But his position coach, Robert Livingston, remained, as did his role as a foundational block.
It wasn’t long after head coach Zac Taylor arrived that the weeding-out process began, with the new regime separating itself from the key components of the Lewis locker room. Not only was Bates never a consideration to be jettisoned, he found himself cradling the future of the franchise in his care midway through Taylor’s second season when rookie quarterback Joe Burrow suffered a torn ACL.
The Bengals had won just four of Taylor’s first 26 games as coach, and he needed the guys he trusted most to hold everything together.
“Zac specifically grabbed me and (wide receiver Tyler Boyd) and said we need to take control of the team,” Bates said. “Joe got hurt against Washington. The week after, (Taylor) said it’s going to be a tough ride, but you guys are the leaders of the team. And it built a lot of character among the core group that is still here. Mix (Joe Mixon), Sam (Hubbard), TB. It’s cool to see something like that when you are going bad and still have that continuity now.”
That “now” was then. Those Bates comments were from last week after the Bengals beat the Bills 27-10 in the divisional round to advance to their second consecutive AFC Championship Game and extend Bates’ fifth franchise-tagged season by at least another week.
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