MADRID -- When the Cincinnati Bengals step on the field at the Santiago Bernabeu in Madrid on Sunday to face the Atlanta Falcons, the Bengals will be posed with a question it once forced other teams to ask.
How does one account for safety Jessie Bates III?
From 2018 to 2022, Bates emerged as one of Cincinnati's best playmakers in the team's run to the Super Bowl at the end of the 2021 season. But after Bates left Cincinnati in free agency, he has spent the past four seasons with the Falcons, with whom he has maintained his perch as one of the best in the NFL.
And ahead of Sunday's game, Bates was asked how much he thinks about the events that led him to leave the team that drafted him.
"Coming here to Atlanta has changed my life, my family's trajectory, what that looks like moving forward," Bates told ESPN. "But at the same time, it's like, damn, you want to play in meaningful football games. I haven't played in the playoffs since I left there. And I don't think they've been in the playoffs, either, since I left."
Bates is correct. The Falcons (3-5) could use a win to jump-start their season and break a nine-year postseason drought. Cincinnati (5-2) is looking to secure its first playoff berth since 2022.
That was Bates' last season with Cincinnati, which drafted him in 2018 with a second-round pick. Bengals coach Zac Taylor, who arrived a year after Bates was drafted, recalled how the former Wake Forest standout went from a young player adjusting to a new scheme to an ascending star.
"He was really just a perfect example of a guy that just shows growth from every year, from years one through five, and proud of the way he attacked it," said Taylor, who continued to extoll everything from Bates' reputation in the locker room and community to how he received coaching. "I don't usually spend this much time praising the other team, but Jessie's one that I've always really liked."
But that growth clashed with a couple of the NFL's realities. In a league with a salary cap, decisions must be made on which players are considered most essential. And after quarterback Joe Burrow and the passing attack proved to be one of the best in the NFL, that's what the Bengals spent their resources on.
In hindsight, even just looking at the financial aspect of the decision, one could argue it cost the Bengals more to let Bates leave.
Bates signed with the Falcons on a four-year deal worth just over $64 million. The contract included guaranteed money in the second year, which is something Cincinnati only just started doing for non-quarterbacks.
Since then, Cincinnati has tried four players in Bates' former role. The combined value of those contracts is $77.9 million, according to OverTheCap.com. That includes the rookie deal for current Bengals cornerback Dax Hill, a 2022 first-round pick who has never settled into a full-time position after initially being drafted to replace Bates.
This offseason, the Bengals took their biggest swing at correcting the decision. They signed former Bryan Cook, who was on two Super Bowl-winning teams with the Chiefs, to a three-year deal worth just over $40 million.
And though the secondary has still had its ups and downs, defensive coordinator Al Golden has been very pleased with how the team's current safeties stack up.
"Jordan [Battle] can stand on his own," Golden said. "Obviously, [Kyle] Dugger has been in the league seven years. He can stand on his own. Cook has solidified himself in this league and is a champion."
Though Atlanta hasn't been successful as a club, the 29-year-old Bates has racked up career accolades. He reached the Pro Bowl in 2023, his first year with the Falcons, and is a two-time second-team All-Pro selection.
This season, he has been just as dynamic. According to ESPN Research, Bates and the New York Giants' Jevon Holland are the only safeties with multiple forced fumbles, an interception and at least four pass deflections.
And the impact goes beyond the numbers. Falcons defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich said Bates was one of the best players he had ever been around in nearly three decades in the NFL.
"As long as you've got Jessie Bates on your defense, you've got a chance because he's going to make sure he's going to touch every single human being from the front to the back and make sure we get the best version of them," Ulbrich said.
On Sunday, it will be the Bengals' turn to account for Bates. On Thursday in Madrid, he said it will be exciting and bittersweet to go up against players he knows well and a franchise that produced "some of the best times of my life."
And it will be a reminder of just how things can go in the NFL.
"That's just part of the business," Bates said. "Sometimes, you got to leave a spot that you love, and there's more blessings on the other side of it."