New Practice Squad Rules Work Out Favorably For Bengals

The biggest takeaway from the new practice squad rules is that a team can keep a maximum of two players who have two accrued NFL seasons. That'd be in addition to the eight guys who would make it under the old PS rules, for a total of 10.

That means that certain players who are currently on the outside of the roster looking in, such as Orson Charles, Trevor Robinson, Kevin Brock, Christo Bilukidi, and Dontay Moch are eligible. None of them would have been eligible under the old rules.

Here's a list of current Bengals who were previously ineligible for the PS, but now would theoretically be eligible under the new rules:

• Offense: Gio Bernard, Kevin Brock, Orson Charles, Tyler Eifert, Marvin Jones, Trevor Robinson Mohamed Sanu, Kevin Zeitler
• Defense: Vontaze Burfict, Jayson DiManche, Margus Hunt, George Iloka, Dre Kirkpatrick, Emmanuel Lamur, Dontay Moch, J.K. Schaffer, Devon Still, Brandon Thompson, Shawn Williams

That's right. Under the new rules, if we wanted to place both Vontaze Burfict and Giovani Bernard on the PS, we would be allowed to. LOL!

For Bilukidi in particular, it gives me somewhat of a sigh of relief, because it is somewhat sad that he won't get to make the roster over Devon Still, purely due to Still's second-round draft status.

Charles is not going to beat out Hewitt, and Robinson is probably not going to beat out Hawkinson or Hopkins. In both cases, that is performance-related.

Moch is not going to beat out Geathers or Clarke. Moch hasn't exactly done much in terms of real NFL game performance, but he has lit it up in the preseason, while Geathers is declining and Clarke is struggling.

None of this affects the chances for the other eight guys who still have the old rules apply to them - because the Bengals will obviously want to first retain Bilukidi, Charles, Moch, and Robinson on the PS (two of that group) before even thinking about retaining the eight other guys.