Ten days ago, Mitchell Tinsley was up in a suite at Reliant Stadium in Houston. The Texans have their practice squad players watch the game from that vantage point, and Tinsley was on the practice squad at the time.
Looking down, Tinsley observed a few things.
He saw a group of Texans’ receivers, minus injured No. 1 receiver Nico Collins, get overwhelmed by the Bengals’ secondary and miss on a handful of contested catch opportunities that could have swung the game. Tinsley also watched his friends on the Bengals — Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins and the rest of the bunch — from a much different point of view than he’s used to.
“It was fun seeing all of my guys,” Tinsley said. “It was a weird feeling. But it’s a part of the business. Kind of what I signed up for.”
In 2025, Tinsley was the Bengals’ No. 4 receiver and played 288 snaps. He had a fine training camp this summer with Cincinnati, but the Bengals drafted a new outside receiver option in Colbie Young and then Dohnte Meyers came out of nowhere to take the final receiver spot away from Tinsley.
“I was hoping to be here,” Tinsley said. “Hoping to expand on the role I had last year. I was disappointed, for sure. It’s how it goes.”
After Tinsley didn’t make the Bengals’ 53-man roster on cutdown day, he signed to Houston’s practice squad.
“Take a chance on myself,” Tinsley said about that decision. “There were a bunch of teams that wanted me. Let me go see what I can do over there and see if I can work my way up in someone else’s room.”
Without Collins in Week 2 and Week 3, the Texans’ receivers looked terrible. Tinsley, new to the system, still wasn’t getting a shot.
Meanwhile, Andrei Iosivas and Colbie Young went down with injuries. The Bengals needed a new outside receiver, and there’s not really time to teach a brand new face the detailed nature of the Bengals’ offense on the fly during the season. Tinsley knew the playbook already, and he was eligible to be signed to the Bengals’ 53-man roster. They officially made the move on Tuesday.
“I thought it was pretty much a no-brainer,” Joe Burrow said. “He played well for us last year and gave us some good reps. Made a lot of plays for us in his limited opportunities. To get a guy like that back that we weren’t sure we were going to (get back) is good for the Bengals.”
Tinsley was in meetings with the Texans’ receivers on Monday morning. He could see on his Apple Watch that he was getting a lot of texts. He waited to respond until the meetings were over. His agent was telling him to give him a call.
Tinsley’s agent told him, “Cincinnati wants you back.”
“It was a no-brainer,” Tinsley said. “I already know the offense. If it was another team, I don’t know. I’d have to learn a whole new playbook and a whole new system. Here, I’ve got all of my teammates that I was here with in training camp. Familiar faces. A familiar playbook. I’m comfortable here. This is kind of home to me.”
Once the deal was done, he was officially re-added to the receivers’ group chat.
Tinsley said the messages were along the line of, “Hey, welcome back, missed you, let’s get to work.”
He’s back like he never left.
“I took a three-week vacation to Houston and got rested up,” Tinsley said. “Now, I’m ready to go.”
He should have the chance to contribute immediately. With Young expected to miss this game, the Bengals only have four healthy receivers: Chase, Higgins, Meyers (more of a slot receiver) and Tinsley. The Bengals’ tight ends heavily factor into their passing game plan, but there are still plenty of available reps for Tinsley to fill.
Young was going to play a big role last week in Pittsburgh before he suffered a knee injury on the first play of the game.
“I feel bad for Colbie because Colbie had a sizable role in that plan,” Dan Pitcher. “For him to go out after one play, it’s disappointing for him. But I know he’ll battle back, and hopefully, it’s not something that’s going to cause much long-term issue for him, so he’ll come back stronger. In the meantime, there are multiple guys that can fill that role, and I’m excited to see what they do.”
When Young went out, the coaching staff had to adjust the plan on the fly.
“You change every personnel on your sheet when Colbie goes out on the first play,” Zac Taylor said. “But that’s part of it, and I thought our guys handled it really well. I thought Dohnte handled it really well. I thought Tanner (Hudson), I thought Mike (Gesicki) — all those guys that now had to do things they hadn’t practiced all week, because maybe (Colbie) was penciled into all that stuff — stepped up and did great. I think that’s the coaches doing a good job on the sidelines. Half the game, you’re going up to guys, ‘OK, we can’t do this. Now, this guy’s got to do it.’ And the assistants on the sideline are handling it, and the players are really smart. They’re adjusting. So I thought that was a credit to all those guys that were involved in that part of it.”
Tinsley, who should step into Young’s role, has the advantage of already knowing the details of the scheme and being able to adjust on the fly. He did a little bit of everything in 2026 and was a reliable dirty work guy. He contributed on special teams, and he can also serve as the backup returner behind Meyers.
Meyers played 10 offensive snaps in Week 1, 11 in Week 2 and 32 in Week 3. Twenty-one of his routes have come out of the slot, and 12 have come from an outside receiver position. He has gone from a feel-good story to a meaningful part of the offense.
“I thought Dohnte did an excellent job (against the Steelers),” Taylor said. “He was a part of the game plan, but that really expanded when Colbie went out. He had a really good feel for what we asked him to do. He blocked some big guys. It’s hard because certain guys you put in there and the personnel groupings will change on defense. Sometimes, Dohnte draws a difficult task with his responsibility. I thought he gave everything he possibly could to make those blocks we needed from him. He did a good job of understanding the game plan and the tweaks we needed from him in there. Really proud of what he did.”
Gesicki and Hudson, who line up often in the slot, should also see their roles increase going forward.
Tinsley only recorded eight catches last year, but he picked up six first downs and two memorable touchdowns. He was on the field for nine touchdown plays for the team, filling all sorts of roles (catching the deep pass, serving as a decoy, doing the dirty work as the receiver who draws the attention of the safety and creates a one-on-one matchup for someone else, blocking the safety on a touchdown run by the running back).
“We’ll get him up to speed very quickly,” Taylor said about Tinsley. “He’ll be able to help us.”
