The Bengals signed Little on Thursday, a little more than five months after cutting him in February.
“I just remember the exit meeting with Marvin at the end of the season, I just tried to reiterate with him to try to give me a chance to have a training camp here,” Little said. “Let me come in and have a normal offseason and try to learn the system and show you what I can do with that.”
But Lewis said Little didn’t fit in the plans with the expected return of James Wright from a knee injury that cost the receiver the final four games of his rookie year. Then Wright landed on Injured Reserve due to continuing issues with his knee, so the Bengals brought Little back.
“This may be his last stop to get it done right,” Lewis said. “So he has to toe the line in every area. But he did enough positives when he was here to warrant an opportunity to come back and see if he can make us a better football team.”
A second-round pick of the Cleveland Browns in 2011, Little was out of work last year until the Bengals signed him in October. In his second game with the team, he caught three passes for 42 yards to help Cincinnati beat Baltimore 27-24.
But he only had 2 catches for 14 yards after that.
“It’s a new club, it was extremely new terminology and then the rate at which our offense plays, it plays at a very high level,” Little said. “Just having to learn at that expediated process is kind of tough. It’s much easier to learn in training camp when you have the time and they’re installing it instead of you have 20 other guys on the offense that kind of know the gameplan already, so it’s kind of expediated and you have to take extra time at night and just try to create time to grab a coach and try to brush up on it.”
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