Former Penn State wide receiver Mitchell Tinsley is heading back to an NFL active roster, and it is with a team that already knows him.
The Cincinnati Bengals are signing Tinsley off the Houston Texans practice squad, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported Tuesday. The move returns the 2022 Nittany Lion to the club he spent all of last season with after Cincinnati’s receiver depth took another hit.
Tinsley lasted one year in Happy Valley, but it was a full one. After arriving from Western Kentucky, he played all 13 games in 2022, started 10 and finished with 51 catches for 577 yards and five touchdowns.
He caught a pass in every game that season and closed his college career with a six-catch, 49-yard, one-touchdown night in the Rose Bowl win over Utah. He also scored in the season opener at Purdue, part of a 7-for-84 debut in a Penn State uniform.
That reliability is what Cincinnati is buying again. Tinsley went undrafted in 2023, signed with Washington, appeared in two games there, then landed a futures deal with the Bengals in February 2025.
He made Cincinnati’s roster last year and played all 17 games, starting four. His NFL line remains modest: eight catches, 116 yards and two touchdowns. One of those scores was a one-handed grab against Jacksonville.
The Bengals still cut him at the end of camp this summer, choosing rookie Colbie Young, Dohnte Meyers and Ke’Shawn Williams as reserve receivers behind Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins. Houston signed Tinsley to its practice squad a day later.
He did not get elevated in three weeks with the Texans. Cincinnati came back for him after Andrei Iosivas tore a thumb ligament, had surgery and went on injured reserve.
Iosivas is expected to miss at least four games. Young then hurt his knee on the first offensive play of Sunday’s 30-27 loss at Pittsburgh and will sit this week against Jacksonville, coach Zac Taylor said.
That left Cincinnati short behind Chase and Higgins. Tinsley already knows the terminology, the meeting rooms and the special-teams assignments. He played 123 special-teams snaps for the Bengals last season.
His college path fits the same story. He had no Power Five offers out of Lee’s Summit, Missouri, walked on at Hutchinson Community College, produced at Western Kentucky (87 catches, 1,402 yards and 14 touchdowns in 2021) and used his last season at Penn State to prove he could work in a Big Ten offense.
He was never going to put up Western Kentucky numbers next to Parker Washington in James Franklin’s attack. What he did was stay available and finish drives. Five of his Penn State touchdowns came in the red zone.
Cincinnati is 2-1 and hosts Jacksonville on Sunday. Tinsley is not about to bump Chase or Higgins. He is a known option while Iosivas and Young are out, and another reminder that the 2022 Nittany Lions receiving room still has players scraping for NFL roster spots.
