The Cincinnati Bengals added two players via the waiver wire but attempted to make it three with former Philadelphia Eagles running back Wendell Smallwood.
Smallwood ended up with the Washington Redskins, though it turns out the Bengals were one of the teams trying to grab the wire’s most popular player, according to ESPN’s Field Yates:
“The most popular player to hit the waiver system this weekend was former Eagles RB Wendell Smallwood. Four teams – the Redskins, Colts, Jaguars and Bengals – all placed a claim on him, per source.”
Not hard to see why. Smallwood is all of 25 years old and has 850 yards and five scores while averaging four yards per carry since joining the league via the fifth round in 2016. More importantly, he’s a strong pass-catching option out of the backfield who grabbed 28 catches last year.
A rotational back, Smallwood didn’t survive the cutdown at one of the Eagles’ deepest positions. The Bengals would’ve loved to have him behind Joe Mixon and Giovani Bernard as depth, especially after Rodney Anderson’s injury and Trayveon Williams still recovering from one of his own.
At the least, this shows the Bengals were attempting to make even more moves.
