CINCINNATI – Germaine Pratt deserved better from the Cincinnati Bengals, but that just makes him a member of a club that is far from exclusive.
Jessie Bates, DJ Reader and Andrew Whitworth are just a few of the former players who will be waiting to greet Pratt at the door.
The Bengals finally released Pratt today, ending five months of inevitability.
Pratt’s play dropped off considerably in 2024 despite leading the team with 143 tackles. His missed tackles, poor angles and slower pursuit played a role in the overall defensive disaster that cost the Bengals a playoff berth and defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo his job.
With Pratt due to count $8.2 million against the salary cap in the final season of the three-year, $20.5 million extension he signed following the 2022 season, keeping an aging, slowing, declining linebacker never was in the plans.
But the Bengals waited another five months to stamp the transaction, costing Pratt a chance to find a new home in free agency.
You could make an argument for at least wanting to see how the draft played out, but the Bengals landed linebacker Demetrius Knight Jr. in the second round and Barrett Carter in the fourth round.
Instead of cutting Pratt after that, the team relocated his locker, shoving it into a corner near the defensive backs to make room from Knight and Carter, the latter of whom is in Pratt’s former space.
Prior to the draft, the Bengals didn’t just cost Pratt in free agency. They cost themselves.
Their inability to get the Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins extensions done before the start of free agency blew up whatever plan might have been in place, resulting in them not addressing some obvious positions of need.
Cutting Pratt saves $5.85 million in cap space which could have been used to add more help in March.
Pratt requested a trade in February, and perhaps that’s why they strung him along for so long, hoping another team would have an injury at the linebacker position that would jolt them into pursuing a deal.
But that was the only way a trade was going to happen because the rest of the league knew the split was coming, so whatever teams might be interested in Pratt were willing to wait until the light finally went on in the Bengals front office.
Pratt deserved better.
He took a lot of heat from the fan base last year for his play, but he was an integral part of the franchise’s rebirth as both the cerebral command center and turnover-forcing demon on defense.
Since arriving as a third-round pick in 2019 to snap the franchise’s run of third-round linebacker busts, Pratt appeared in 96 of a possible 98 games.
One of the two he missed was the 2021 finale when the Bengals rested all of their starters, while the other one came in Week 3 of 2022 due to a knee injury.
Pratt’s 604 tackles rank 16th in the league since 2019. But his more impactful plays came when he attacked the ball as well as the ball carrier, leading to seven forced fumbles, five fumble recoveries and seven interceptions.
And that doesn’t include the interception that set off one of the biggest parties Cincinnati has seen since the Reds won the World Series in 1990.
Pratt’s goal-line interception of Derek Carr to seal the Wild Card playoff win against the Raiders and snap a 30-season drought with a postseason victory will be remembered by Bengals fans for years, maybe decades to come.
So many of his other turnovers came in huge moments as well.
His forced fumble and recovery against Vikings running back Dalvin Cook in overtime of the season opener turned a near-certain loss into the first of several walk-off field goals for Evan McPherson as the Bengals made a run to Super Bowl LVI.
There was the forced fumble and recovery against Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce in 2022, turning another near-certain loss into a comeback victory.
The forced fumble against Bills tight end Dalton Kincaid at the Cincinnati 13-yard line as the Bills were driving for a game-tying touchdown in the fourth quarter.
Four of Pratt’s seven career forced fumbles came in the fourth quarter or overtime.
Three of his interceptions came in the fourth quarter, including the Week 17 pick against Denver quarterback Bo Nix with 2:30 left in a tie game that the Bengals went on to win to keep their playoff hopes alive.
There was the diving interception of Tom Brady in the fourth quarter of Cincinnati’s come-from-behind win at Tampa Bay in 2022.
And the red-zone pick of Brock Purdy in San Francisco with 4 seconds left in the third quarter and the 49ers driving for a game-tying touchdown.
Pratt was both durable and clutch, but his level of play in 2024 and among of pay in 2025 made it impossible to justify keeping him around.
It was an obvious move and one that should have been made so much sooner given how much Pratt, who was voted a team captain in 2024, meant to the organization.
He deserved better. But he’s not alone.
