The life cycle of a Bengals' draft pick hits high noon in a few hours when the roster must be cut to 53 players by 4 p.m.
The timeline continues to churn Wednesday with the claiming of waived players, the formation of a 16-man practice squad and the ticking clock to Opening Day. For sixth-round pick Cedric Johnson of Ole Miss, one of the stars of training camp, the answer comes at the Tuesday deadline.
"I think I've shown I can give value on special teams and the rush position and versatility," Johnson said after one final strong outing in Thursday's preseason finale against the Colts at Paycor Stadium.
It appears as if it could be good news for nearly all of Johnson's fellow nine draft picks in the affirmation of a process that began years ago when they started playing in college and the Bengals scouts took their first cursory takes.
It's not a done deal such a low draft pick makes it.
"At camp, you have to be felt," says Bengals senior defensive assistant Mark Duffner, the first Bengals coach to meet Johnson. "Especially on defense. If you're going to make it, they have to feel you."
Johnson's evolution may be accelerated because of the sudden lack of depth on the edge with the season-ending Achilles' injury to Cam Sample and the week-to-week injury suffered by Myles Murphy.
That gave him a chance to play well against first-and second-team defenses and rack up 101 preseason scrimmage snaps, several more than expected. His career may have started on the roster but on the game day inactive list and now, if he makes it, it may be a career that starts Opening Day with a full diet of special teams and a handful of third-down snaps.
Still, after Johnson showed off his raw but natural pass-rush skills on the edge with three more pressures, it's been a long, hard wait since Thursday night. And he got some tough news over the weekend when his older brother, Tampa Bay wide receiver Cephus Johnson III, was cut.
"His dreams are my dreams," Johnson said. "I felt like I got cut, too. He believes in me. He's pretty confident. He told me, 'Don't worry, you'll still make the team. It will work out."'
They grew up in West Mobile, Alabama, but they never played against each other until the preseason opener at Paycor Stadium, when Cedric first surfaced playing more than half the snaps on a defensive line that kept getting more depleted as training camp went.
"I wish I was able to hit him, but it's all good," Cedric Johnson said. "He told me after the game he was proud of me, keep stacking the days."
Long before the first cut, he got another sense of the business of the NFL when fellow edger Jeff Gunter suddenly retired in his third training camp.
"That was a surprise, and it was kind of tough," Johnson said. "He had taken me under his wing and helped me."
Johnson had been in the business before he got drafted. He returned to his hometown to play in front of his family at the Senior Bowl. He went to Los Angeles to train for the NFL scouting combine. He did Zoom calls with about 15-20 teams, but the Bengals were the only team that did multiple calls with him.
And, for the past few years, he had been under the scrutiny of seasoned NFL evaluators like Bengals senior personnel executive Trey Brown.
A few weeks ago while Brown watched from the sidelines as Johnson emerged, he gave scout short-hand of his reports that put Johnson in the Bengals' blender:
Put his traits on film … Really can run … Good, natural strength … Not only can set the edge, but can also throw a fastball on the rush … After doing so many different things at Oxford, gives coaches plenty of options.
Once the coaches got involved, the reports of his versatility with the Rebels caught the stare of Bengals defensive line coach Marion Hobby. The fact he played for multiple position coaches and defensive coordinators had a lure, too.
Hobby had also been aware of guys that had been drafted out of the Ole Miss scheme the past few years, such as the Ravens' fourth-round pick last year, defensive end Tavius Robinson, and late-round linebackers Mack Robinson and Chase Campbell of the Steelers and Titans, respectively.
"Football school. He had played with his hand in the ground, he had played standing up, he had gone inside. He had seen different concepts," Hobby said. "He's got a real good knack for finding the quarterback. People take that for granted. Some guys have no feel for where the quarterback is. I think he does."
Johnson wasn't enough on the radar to draw any 18-minute interviews with teams at the combine. He did a batch of informal meetings, one of them with Duffner in that first encounter with a Bengals coach.
"I think Duff was sold on me right away. He had talked to a lot of my coaches," Johnson said. "He always stayed in touch to show the love. The Bengals showed the most interest."
Hobby Zoomed him twice. Duffer, who works with the edgers in individual drills during practice, got him once, but he also called three times.
"You can tell a lot from Zooms," said Hobby, who would show Johnson clips of his Ole Miss plays. "Don't tell me you're supposed to be in the C Gap and then you say you've got all the pressure coming from the right. Get them to say it. 'Yeah, that's a loaf. Or, 'That's an M.A. (missed assignment).' I talked a little ball with him. He was good. He was open."
Duffner, Czar of the Zoom, makes about 50 Zooms a draft season. But just as important, he says, are the phone calls.
"They're not just, 'Hey, how you doing?'" Duffner said. "You're not only trying to develop a relationship of trust, but you're also trying to confirm this is the right guy for the long-term future of the Bengals. You're trying to get as much information as you can so your opinion on the player is solid. If you can make the call to talk to him, take advantage."
Duffner found Johnson to be bright, prompt, courteous and serious. He asked Johnson to take notes and knew he did when on later calls he would spew the information.
At the Ole Miss Pro Day in late March, Duffner spent time with Johnson and his position coach. As the Bengals defensive coaches' eyes and ears in Oxford that day, he caught the act of safety Daijahn Anthony and reported back that, yes, he could confirm their instincts and he was draftable.
When Anthony joined Johnson as a Bengal in the seventh round a month later, there were high-fives in the Draft Room, a sure sign of what they feel are value picks.
Duffner: "(Johnson) is an ascending player. And guys like (edges) Sam Hubbard, Trey Hendrickson, Cam Sample and Joseph Ossai are showing him how to study, how to take care of his body, how to practice."
Hobby: "He's got a little burst. He plays faster than he practices. He doesn't get nervous about it. He's got a good confidence level when he goes against a first- or second-team tackle."
"They're different style of guys," Johnson said of his line coaches. "When Duff was calling me, he was saying, 'Keep up the good work,' very encouraging. He's a little more laid back, but once he gets his hands on you, he wants what's best for his players. Kind of a bird's eye view. Hob is on us 24-7. They've got a really good dynamic for us."
Despite the confidence in him and the constant coaching of the spring, Johnson didn't feel it come together until the first week of August.
"I was a little nervous leading up to the first day of pads," Johnson said. "I couldn't really get a feel for things until we started actually striking each other. That first day, I felt pretty good. After that, I just started stacking days."
Now the stack has stopped. Head coach Zac Taylor gave the Bengals Friday and Saturday off before deploying brief practices Sunday and Monday in the run-up to Tuesday's off day and the cuts.
Which means Johnson has been killing a lot of time over at the team training camp hotel and going across the bridge from Paycor Stadium in Covington, Kentucky. He's been eating at First Watch or The Waffle House in between stints at the stadium lifting, submerging himself in one of the tubs or watching film.
"I watch film at the hotel, too," Johnson said.
He keeps in touch with his parents back in Mobile, where his dad works for the paper conglomerate Kimberly-Clark and his mother works in the state revenue office. They came up for the Tampa game to see both kids play, but they're waiting, too, with encouraging words.
"I think I did what I could. I feel like whatever happens, it's going to work out," says Cedric Johnson at high noon.
