Cincinnati Bengals Defensive Depth Chart

The start of the 2014 NFL season can't come soon enough, but there's still plenty of work to be done before the Cincinnati Bengals are ready for the upcoming season.

With 90 player on the roster, the Bengals coaches must slowly cut that down to 53 over the next three months. On defense, most of the same names from the past two years are still here thankfully.

Defensive end Michael Johnson is the only starter not returning, meaning 10 of the 11 starting spots are accounted for.

The real competition comes in those backup spots, where there are many talented players, but not all of them will make it onto the final 53-man roster.

For now, here's a projection of what the Bengals defensive depth chart would look like if a preseason was being played today.

*Recovering from surgery
**Draft Pick
***Undrafted Free Agent

By no means is this meant to be a prediction of what the 53-man roster will look like. This is simply what the depth chart would look like entering Day 1 of training camp, as it's hard to see it changing any through padless-OTA partices.

Rookies like Darqueze Dennard, Marquise Flowers and Will Clarke will work their way up the depth chart as training camp and the preseason progresses.

There will also be a few players currently projected a 2nd-stringers, like Taylor Mays, Jayson DiManche and Robert Geathers, could find themselves on the wrong side of the roster bubble when final cuts are being made.