The Bengals Offensive Line Narrative NEEDS To Change...
John Sheeran breaks down why the Bengals offensive line narrative needs to change entering the 2026 NFL season.
Video Transcript
The Bengals still have a massive PR problem with part of their team, and unfortunately, it was us who helped create it.
I'm John Sheeran of A to Z Sports Cincinnati.
This is A to Z Sports Cincinnati, covering your Cincinnati Bengals throughout the 2026 preseason.
I was having a little bit of an issue figuring out what I wanted to talk about today.
Today was a light practice for the Bengals.
Yesterday, obviously, Ja'Marr Chase had his injury scare in which he landed a bit awkwardly trying to catch a deep pass.
He ended up slightly hyperextending his knee just a little bit when his foot got stuck in the grass, but obviously a lot better than any sort of ligament damage that was initially feared when he went down.
Ja'Marr Chase is a, a mutant.
He's got insane healing powers somehow.
He is just a freak.
He's gonna be fine, even if he didn't practice on Wednesday.
Thankfully, we're not sitting here talking about what the Bengals are gonna do without Ja'Marr Chase for an extended period of time.
I don't expect him to miss week one of the regular season at all.
But it is part of the Bengals offense that still carries around this heavy weight regarding how the last, I don't know, 10 years have gone.
Because people still very much believe that the Bengals offensive line is still a debilitating problem.
And I mention the last 10 years because this wasn't just an issue when Joe Burrow got to Cincinnati.
The last offensive lines for Andy Dalton were also nothing to write home about.
And I really did believe that the ending of last season, when the Bengals offensive line was legitimately a quality unit, that that would change or at least start to change the perception of who the Bengals offensive line is, especially considering that all five starters from that final stretch of the year are coming back.
But clearly, that is not the case.
Now, Louis Riddick, ESPN NFL analyst and former NFL front office member and NFL player, I respect most of your takes, right?
And I respect the idea that, yeah, there is some still that this offensive line needs to prove, especially when you look just at the individuals of the unit, right?
Dylan Fairchild still needs to take another step forward.
Amarius Mims still has room to grow, even though he's already a lot better than I think p- people give him credit for.
Ted Karras needs to not fall off of a cliff at 33 years old, and the same could be said for Dalton Risner at ab- about the same age.
Orlando Brown Jr. Can be considered the weak link of this unit.
But the offensive line could derail everything for Cincinnati is a ludicrous statement.
It's a gross over-exaggeration in my opinion.
And we've talked plenty this week specifically about the Bengals' lack of depth at tackle and how that is a roster hole that needs to be filled before the season starts.
That is true, but I'm not giving Riddick the benefit of the doubt here because I don't think he's talking about the depth of the offensive line.
He's talking about the starters themselves because, obviously, we all saw what happened at the beginning of last season.
Joe Burrow got hurt yet again.
And when a quarterback gets hurt once, that is enough of, of a question about the offensive line.
When a quarterback gets hurt consistently, that only perpetuates the questioning of the offensive line.
And because this is something that has followed Burrow for the entirety of his career, because as a rookie, he was playing behind a legitimately bad offensive line and suffered a horrendous knee injury only 10 weeks into his career, it has not gone away, and this has proven to be something that is not going to go away very easily.
But this is not just another talking head spouting off something because he wants it to be true.
There is factual evidence that the offensive line is not as big of a problem as Riddick or anyone else believe it still is.
The difference between the first part of the season, which the Bengals had three quarterbacks play the first seven games, and two rookies were playing a majo- a majority of the time at both guard spots, and there was a brand-new offensive line coach trying to implement new techniques and teachings with the entire unit, they were bad, right?
They were bad.
The final 10 weeks, especially the final seven weeks when Dalton Risner was fully established as the starter at right guard, Dylan Fairchild had, you know, some more experience to kind of help him out, and then you had Ted Karras, Amarius Mims, and Orlando Brown Jr.
Playing a lot better with more continuity around them, they were one of the best units in the league in pass protection as part of, as Joe Goodberry points out, the most pass heaviest team in the NFL.
Watching the Bengals at the end of the 2025 season was not always pretty.
They did lay a complete stinker against the Baltimore Ravens, but watching the offensive line specifically during that stretch was a joy.
It was a complete pleasure considering the quality of the offensive line play from the previous decade.
Part of that is also because Amarius Mims finally started taking that monumental leap that he was destined to take when he was drafted in the first round back in 2024, and now he is legitimately primed to be one of the best pass blocking tackles in the NFL, and he's still a joy to watch in the run game as he's getting more and more aggressive.
An offensive line is still only as good as its weakest link, but the Bengals have not had an elite piece of the puzzle for a long time, really since Andrew Whitworth a decade ago.
Amarius Mims has the potential, the very real potential, to be that piece, and it's going to make life a lot easier for those around him.
Mims played his best football.
Dalton Risner played, like, the best version of himself previously with the Denver Broncos and Minnesota Vikings.
Ted Karras was as stable as ever.
Dylan Fairchild improved as the year went on.
And Orlando Brown Jr., although he had some struggles here and there, he found some footing as well.
Every single member of the starting five offensive line for the Bengals played well down the stretch, and they are all back.
If Riddick has legitimate concerns about a fall off with Brown, Risner, and Karras just because they're over 30 years old, I can kind of hear that.
But to say that this offensive line is still a problem and that they could derail everything, again, is inaccurate and it's ignoring all objective information about the situation.
You don't get to just put on a nice suit, talk about how the quarterback was injured on the second week of the season, and claim that the offensive line is still a problem.
It's segments like this that then get posted on social media for engagement, knowing that the Bengals fan base is very active and very sensitive about this topic.
It's why the ESPN machine gets slowly, and w- actually more quickly and quickly, turning into garbage.
And while ESPN is a definite part of the problem, I do think Bengals fans like myself are also to blame here a little bit.
It's true that if you've watched the Bengals in recent years, you know the offensive line has not been good enough, and it wasn't until the end of last season when a lot of people checked out and the season was already lost, that they finally started to play better.
Even in their good years in 2021 and 2022, there were still faults to be had along the lines.
Like, I think in 2022 was their best version of the unit in which they had overall team success, but there was still a rookie, Cordell Volson, starting at left guard.
You had injuries at right tackle with La'el Collins not finishing the entire season.
Hakeem Adeniji was still a starter in the AFC Championship that postseason, in which Chris Jones took advantage of them and the Chiefs ended up winning.
Bengals fans have seen this team try and sometimes succeed in overcoming shoddy offensive line play, and that knowledge has, I think, in part, kind of elevated the statuses of Joe Burrow, and Ja'Marr Chase, and Tee Higgins, and Joe Mixon, and Chase Brown overcoming not the greatest blocking up front for the majority of their careers.
The fan base has always been one of the first groups, the first entities, to shout to the rooftops that this offensive line needs an overhaul, and it needs a s- a systemic change in terms of which players they, they actually scout and go ahead and target.
And I really do believe that the drafting of Mims in 2024 was the beginning of that very much needed shift.
They drafted Mims in the first round that year.
They drafted Matt Lee in the seventh round, who I thought was a good prospect, but injuries just got the best of him over his first two years.
The next year, they draft Dylan Fairchild.
Jalen Rivers was a fifth round pick.
He's not looking so hot.
But this year, they end up drafting Brian Parker and Conor Lu.
I think both players are gonna be very promising for their roles as rookies and potentially long-term starters along the interior.
And then to go out and sign Don Risner, again, a perfect fit for the scheme.
They have built a quality offensive line through free agency and the draft.
They are now, in my opinion, looking at the correct qualities and the attributes of what makes an offensive lineman successful, both as a veteran and as a rookie.
And maybe most importantly, they have the right offensive line coach in place with Scott Peers, who has done wonders for everyone wearing a Bengals uniform as an offensive lineman with his strike system, techniques, and pass protection.
This has all been recent, and the outcries for better offensive line play from fans has been echoing for several years now, and it then, it reached the media landscape.
And it still hasn't left there yet, because unfortunately, the Bengals just haven't had a good offensive line with a good team in quite some time.
And thus, this PR problem persists partly because it's just been around for so long.
But with three weeks until the season begins, I'm here to tell you that the Bengals offensive line is not a problem, and if it is a problem during the regular season, then it's because of new developments that have happened.
And it's part of why I can't wait for the regular season to get here because some of these narratives, some of these perceptions about the Bengals, they need to die quickly
