The Bengals released veteran offensive tackle La’El Collins from the physically unable to perform list yesterday, ending his tenure in Cincinnati after only one year. Bengals coach Zac Taylor says he wasn’t happy about it, but it was the right decision for the team.
“There’s never a great time to do it and it sucks when you have to tell a guy that,” Taylor said of letting Collins know he’d been released.
Collins signed with the Bengals last year and played well until suffering a torn ACL in December. This offseason the Bengals signed Orlando Brown to play left tackle and moved Jonah Williams to right tackle, and Collins became the odd man out.
“It’s tough. There’s never a great time. He worked really hard for us,” Taylor said. “I have a lot of respect for LC and the way he went about his business. He gave us some really good snaps last year until the injury. I enjoyed being around LC.”
Taylor said that the Bengals are confident in backups D’Ante Smith and Jackson Carman if either Brown or Williams miss time.
“D’Ante had a good camp for us,” Taylor said. “As we continue to develop guys like D’Ante and Jackson, who can give us good tackle snaps if we need them, we feel good about our depth there.”
Collins now becomes a free agent and will hope to get healthy and sign with another team soon.
