Cincinnati Bengals rookie Jordan Battle was one of the team’s lone bright points during the Week 12 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Receiving the most playing time of his young career, the third-round pick finished as the highest-graded Bengals defender at Pro Football Focus with a 76.8 mark.
Battle had eight tackles on the day and finished graded higher than other proven Bengals like DJ Reader and Trey Hendrickson, to name a few.
Even so, he was focused on ways to improve after the game.
“We’ve got to be better on third down,” Battle said, according to Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com. “When Coach calls ‘Man,’ we have to play that. We want to be a man defense. You have to lock up on third down and get off the field.”
With the Bengals essentially in development and evaluation mode the rest of the season (not that they’ll ever call it that), Battle has a chance to keep improving and lock down the long-term starting spot next to Dax Hill over the next six games.
