CINCINNATI BENGALS (9-8)
Owner Mike Brown has the most patience in professional sports when it comes to his coaches, but if the Bengals get off to another slow start or miss the playoffs, it will likely be the end of Zac Taylor's tenure. The Bengals reached the Super Bowl in the 2021 season and the AFC championship game the next season but have missed the playoffs the past two years. Taylor is going into his seventh season as coach and is 7-14-1 in September games, the fourth-worst mark among teams since 2019. Cincinnati opens at Cleveland on Sept. 7 and hosts Jacksonville one week later. It should be 1-1 at worst before a tough five-game stretch — at Vikings, at Broncos (on Monday night), vs. Lions, at Packers and vs. Steelers (on Thursday night). They have one of the top offenses in the league with quarterback Joe Burrow and wide receivers Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins. The Bengals can put up the points, but have had problems the past couple of seasons stopping the other team. They lost four games last season where they scored at least 30 points. First-year defensive coordinator Al Golden will have All-Pro defensive end Trey Hendrickson after he agreed to a reworked one-year deal that should earn him $30 million. Hendrickson led the league with 17 1/2 sacks last season and has accounted for most of the team's pressure. First-round pick Shemar Stewart should add pressure from the other side, but the unit is still getting up to speed after struggling in the preseason.
Guard Lucas Patrick, DT T.J. Slaton Jr., LB Oren Burks, DE Shemar Stewart, LB Demetrius Knight Jr., Guard Dylan Fairchild, OL Jalen Rivers, Guard Dalton Risner.
DT Sheldon Rankins, Guard Alex Cappa, DE Sam Hubbard, OT Trent Brown, DL Jay Tufele, LB Akeem Davis-Gaither, LB Germaine Pratt, CB Mike Hilton, S Vonn Bell.
Burrow has his top two playmakers for the foreseeable future after Chase and Higgins signed long-term extensions during the offseason. Higgins has dealt with injuries and has missed at least five games each of the past two seasons. The receivers aren't the only pass catchers that opposing defenses have to worry about, however. Tight end Mike Gesicki had 38 first downs on his 65 receptions while Noah Fant was signed less than a week into training camp.
The task of keeping Burrow upright remains a work in progress. He has been sacked 196 times since being the top overall pick in 2020, second highest in that span. Cincinnati will go into the season with two new starters at guard. Dylan Fairchild was expected to start immediately at left guard when he was taken in the third round in April. With Cordell Volson lost for the season becaue of a shoulder injury, either free-agent signing Dalton Risner or fifth-round pick Jalen Rivers, a converted offensive tackle, could get the start at right guard.
Wide receiver Mitchell Tinsley made the roster with two touchdowns catches in the second preseason game at Washington. That included a toe-tapping, 21-yard grab near the back of the end zone before halftime.
Along with capturing the receiving triple crown, Chase had five 100-yard games and two streaks last season where he had a touchdown catch in at least three straight games.
Win Super Bowl: 20-1.
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Cincinnati Bengals defensive end Trey Hendrickson runs off the field during a preseason NFL football game against the Indianapolis Colts, Saturday, Aug. 23, 2025, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Jeff Dean)
Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow (9) throws during the first half of a preseason NFL football game against the Washington Commanders Monday, Aug. 18, 2025, in Landover, Md. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
NEW YORK (AP) — Ten years ago, Kim Gordon — a revolutionary force in the alternative rock band Sonic Youth, the ’80s New York no wave scene and the space between art and noise — debuted solo music. At the time, she was already decades into a celebrated, mixed-medium creative career.
The midtempo “Murdered Out” was her first single, where clangorous, overdubbed guitars met the unmistakable rasp of her deadpan intonations. It was a surprise from an experimentalist well-versed in the unexpected: The song took inspiration from Los Angeles car culture, and its main collaborator was the producer Justin Raisen, then best known for his pop work with Sky Ferreira and Charli XCX. Their partnership has continued in the decade since, and on March 13, Gordon will drop her third solo album, “Play Me,” announced Wednesday alongside the release of a hazy, transcendent single, “Not Today.”
“It was a happy accident,” she says of her continued work with Raisen. “In the beginning, I was somewhat skeptical of working with a producer and collaborator, really. But it’s turned out to be incredibly freeing.”
“Play Me” follows Gordon's critically lauded, beat-heavy 2024 album “The Collective,” a noisy body of work that featured oddball trap blasts. It earned her two Grammy nominations — a career first — for alternative music album and alternative music performance. Those were for the song “Bye Bye,” with its eerie, dissonant beat originally written for rapper Playboi Carti. For “Play Me,” Gordon reimagined the track for the closer, “Bye Bye 25!” She says it was the result of her thinking about the rap world, where revisiting and remixing is commonplace.
“I came up with the idea of using these words that Trump had sort of ‘banned’ in his mind,” she says of the new song's lyrics. (An example: “Injustice / Opportunity / Dietary guidelines / Housing for the future.” President Donald Trump’s administration associates the terms with diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, which it has vowed to root out across the government.) For Gordon, because it became “more conceptual … the remake doesn’t seem as anxiety-provoking as the original.”
There is a connective spirit between “The Collective” and “Play Me” — a shared confrontation, propulsive production and songs that possess a keen ability to process and reflect the world around Gordon. “It does feel kind of like an evolution,” she says of this album next to her last. “It’s sort of a more focused record, and immediate.” The songs are shorter and attentive.
Or, to put it more simply: “I like beats and that inspires me more than melodies,” she says. “Beats and space.”
That palette drives “Play Me,” a foundation in which staccato lyricism transforms and offers astute criticism. Consider the title track, which challenges passive listening and the devaluation of music in the age of streaming. She names Spotify playlist titles, imagined genres defined by mood rather than music. “Rich popular girl / Villain mode” she speak-sings, “Jazz and background / Chillin' after work.”
“It's just representative of, you know, this era we're in, this culture of convenience,” she says. “Music always represented a certain amount of freedom to me, and it feels like that’s kind of been blanketed over.”
Sonically, it is a message delivered atop a '70s groove, placing it in conversation with an era unshackled from these digital technologies.
The title, too, “is playing off the sort of passive nature of listening to music,” she says, “But also it could be seen as defiant. Like, I dare you to play me.”
There's also the blown-out “Subcon,” which examines the world's growing billionaire class and their fascination with space colonialization in a period of economic insecurity. In the song, Gordon's lyrical abstractions highlight the absurdity, taking aim at technocrats.
“I find reality inspirational, no matter how bad it is,” she says. Where some artists might veer away from the news, Gordon tackles truth. “I’m not sure what music is supposed to be. So, I’m just doing my version of it.”
In the end, she hopes listeners are “somewhat thrilled by” the album.
“'This is the music that I’ve wanted to hear,’ kind of feeling. Does that sound egotistical? I don’t know,” she laughs. If it is, it is earned.
1. “Play Me”
2. “Girl with a Look”
3. “No Hands”
4. “Black Out”
5. “Dirty Tech”
6. “Not Today”
7. “Busy Bee”
8. “Square Jaw”
9. “Subcon”
10. “Post Empire”
11. “Nail Bitter”
12. “Bye Bye 25!”
Kim Gordon poses for a portrait in New York on Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (Photo by Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP)
Kim Gordon poses for a portrait in New York on Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (Photo by Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP)
Kim Gordon poses for a portrait on Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025, in New York (Photo by Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP)
