Bengals tout Andrei Iosivas as example of Senior Bowl’s importance

The Cincinnati Bengals head to the Senior Bowl this week hoping to unearth more talent capable of helping the team right away.

And one only has to look to the immediate past to find out just how important that draft pitstop can be.

Around the Bengals, Andrei Iosivas is the name constantly cited as why this week is so important for their draft process. Just take the word of Bengals’ East Coast scout Andrew Johnson.

“Andrei was the perfect Senior Bowl player,” Johnson said, according to Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com. “That’s what this game really shows you. Can those guys who didn’t play against great competition hold up every day down here?”

Iosivas, a sixth-round pick in 2023, stuck out to the Bengals at the Senior Bowl because of the way he matched up against the competition. That was a huge ordeal for scouts to see him hold his own against SEC players at what is essentially an All-Star game after spending his college days at the smaller Princeton.

So while this feels like an exaggeration for an early-February draft event, this week’s Senior Bowl is a critical stop for a Bengals team that has worked with Iosivas and others like Cam Taylor-Britt in recent years.