The Bengals have to address this position before the season starts
John Sheeran discusses the Cincinnati Bengals backup offensive tackles.
Video Transcript
The Bengals have some good problems to have at wide receiver and defensive tackle, but they have a legitimate problem at backup offensive tackle.
Because while every part of the roster essentially looked really well against the Bears in their 27 to nine preseason victory, backup offensive tackle just was not one of the strong points of the Bengals, and that is concerning because this was Jalen Rivers' time to shine.
They moved him from right guard to left tackle this week all throughout practice, in the joint practice against the Chicago Bears as well.
This was his chance to s- to solidify himself in this role, and he just kinda fumbled it.
And I thought what Zac Taylor said after the game was pretty telling about that as well, saying, quote, "If a backup tackle has to go in the game, we wanna keep playing the way that we play.
Just have to be able to trust them in a game.
There's plenty of competition there, and we still have two weeks to go with it."
Translation: it hasn't been good enough.
I was a big fan of Rivers coming out of college.
I thought his tape was really solid at Miami, but it just doesn't seem like he has both the technical prowess and the athleticism to survive in the NFL.
Again, I wanna make it very clear, the Bengals looked really well on Saturday night.
But this is a weakness that isn't going away, and it could be very important if something does happen to either Marius Mims or Lando Brown Jr.
So if the Bengals do end up making some sort of a trade or a, a very aggressive waiver wire pickup, it's gonna be because of this guy.
