The Bengals Need Orlando Brown, Fairchild to Deliver
John Sheeran breaks down why Orlando Brown Jr. and Dylan Fairchild could be the keys to the Bengals' success this season. With Joe Burrow leading one of the NFL's most explosive offenses, strong play from the left tackle and left guard positions will be critical to protecting the franchise quarterback, improving the run game, and helping Cincinnati compete for a championship.
Video Transcript
The Cincinnati Bengals have dramatically improved their roster this year, but there may be one part of the team that is under more pressure to perform this year than we've previously talked about.
I'm John Scheuren of A to Z Sports Cincinnati.
This is A to Z Sports Cincinnati, covering your Cincinnati Bengals throughout the 2026 off-season.
ESPN went ahead and ranked all 32 NFL rosters by all 22 starters for every single team, and the Bengals finished 15th in the NFL.
And when opening the article, I expected the Bengals to be above the top half point.
I, I expected them to be, at the very least, 16th in the NFL, so 15th was about in line with my expectations.
I thought there was some potential for them to be a little bit higher, but I think that is due to the fact that a lot of people, including the likes of ESPN, are still waiting to see just how much better this Bengals team is compared to previous years.
And credit to ESPN, I think 21 of their 22 projected starters are correct.
They have Josh Newton projected to be the third starting cornerback, along with DJ Turner, Dax Hill, and I'm not expecting Josh Newton to start.
That's gonna be either Jaylen Davis, Braelon Lux, or Jasir Taylor who starts in the slot.
But regardless, the third cornerback is not necessarily moving the needle as to how good or bad this team is.
And I did appreciate their analysis of what makes the Bengals roster good and bad, and what are they expecting in terms of how much better can they be based off of what some players on the roster do this year.
It does not take a football savant to know that the strength of the Bengals roster is their wide receivers.
Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, for my money, is the best one-two wide receiver duo in the NFL.
CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens comes close for the Dallas Cowboys, but the tandem of Chase and Higgins have played together for longer, and there's more dynamicism between the two of them, and I think Chase is the best receiver in the NFL, only rivaled by potentially Puka Nacua.
So the fact that you have a inarguably top two or three receiver paired with another bona fide number one in Tee Higgins, who could be a number one for the vast majority of other NFL teams if he were to leave, I think that gives the Bengals an edge.
And it's worth saying the Bengals' depth at receiver has improved compared to last year.
Mitchell Tinsley has a year under his belt within the system.
Andre Josipach is entering a very important contract year, and he seems very laser-focused about making the most of it.
Colby Young, the fourth-round pick from this year's NFL Draft, the Bengals are hyping him up as a potential starter, and at the very least, he provides size that can add him to certain packages and provide him inside-outside versatility, so maybe he makes an impact as a rookie as well.
But I feel better about the entirety of the Bengals wide receiver core than I even did last year, and last year they were still probably the best part of the team.
On a similar note, of course, the weakness of this team is at off-ball linebacker.
Barrett Carter and Demetrius Snyder are your starters.
There's still talk about the Bengals potentially signing Bobby Wagner to fill that obvious liability that they have in the middle of their defense, but everything is gonna come down to how those two can step up and look the part during the ramp-up before the regular season, and any in-season development may be necessary for them to just be the players that this defense needs them to be.
And of course, what makes the problem even worse or even more concerning, is the fact that the depth at linebacker is basically nonexistent.
It's just a bunch of special teamers without any real potential to make a difference as a starter.
And shout-out specifically to Aaron Schatz, who listed Eric Gall Jr. as the non-starter to watch.
In my opinion, he is the X factor for this Bengals team and how they can be even better in 2026, considering that he missed all of 2025 and the Bengals don't have the player that he is at the tight end position.
He is their best chance to elevate that position group and take the offense to another level.
But Seth Walder, who runs analytics for ESPN NFL, he listed the Bengals' left side of the offensive line, left tackle Orlando Brown Jr., and Dylan Fairchild at left guard, as the two X factors for this team in 2026.
And Walder was a bit critical of both Brown and Fairchild for their 2025 performances because ESPN's analytics department utilizes win rate for trench players, so for offensive line, pass block win rate, run block win rate are the big ones, and for defensive linemen, pass rush win rate and run stopping win rate are the big ones for defensive linemen.
And according to these win rate metrics, both Brown and Fairchild ranked in the bottom 20th percentile for all of last season because they were season-long starters.
And to be fair, Walder did say that there is potential for both of them to be better.
Obviously, Brown has had better seasons in the past, and Fairchild was just a rookie, and it is really hard for rookie offensive linemen to play quality seasons for the entirety of their rookie seasons.
But that part is important because both of these guys played significantly better for the Bengals offensive line towards the later part of the season, and that is particularly why I have such confidence in the offensive line as a whole.
This is how Cincinnati's offensive line performed from Pro Football Focus' perspective from weeks 12 to 18, the final seven games of the regular season, in which six of them Joe Burrow played.
No player was graded poorly here.
Obviously, Fairchild and Brown are at the bottom below Dalton Risner, Marius Mims, and Ted Karras, but you will definitely take, for a seven-game stretch for a rookie starting guard, a 73.8 pass blocking grade.
You'll definitely take for Orlando Brown Jr. a 69.2 at left tackle.
And during this stretch, Orlando Brown Jr. specifically had some phenomenal games.
He was basically perfect against the New England Patriots, Baltimore Ravens, and Buffalo Bills in a back-to-back-to-back three-game stretch.
Of course, he did face Myles Garrett in the regular season finale.
He gave up Myles Garrett's record-breaking sack.
That docked his grade a little bit, but I was really impressed specifically with how Orlando Brown Jr. performed at the tail end of the 2025 season.
And remember, he was coming off of a season in 2024 where he suffered basically a broken knee, so we don't really know how healthy he was for the majority of the season.
And by the time that Brown was settling in at that point, Fairchild was able to settle in because Ted Karras was a rock for the majority of the season to his right, and when Orlando Brown Jr. to his left was playing at a more stable rate, that allowed Fairchild to just settle in between two very solid vets, and his job was made a lot easier because of that.
He was essentially flawless throughout the final six games of the season, and that is really promising for a rookie offensive lineman heading into a critical second year.
In general, I think this ranking of 15th in the NFL is fair for right now because the Bengals still have to prove that they are better in 2026.
But a lot of the conversation has been about, yeah, if the Bengals' defense is just average, then the Bengals have a really good chance of getting back to the playoffs and going far.
But I think in terms of how their roster is perceived, if the offensive line proves that the final seven games of last season is indicative of what this unit is going to be for the entirety of 2026, then I think this roster looks a lot better regardless of how much better the defense looks as well.
Because this is Cincinnati and there is still a stigma that the offensive line, it remains to be bad because it's been that way for the better part of the last decade.
It's one of the main reasons as to why Joe Burrow has missed half of the last three seasons.
Just like I'm very confident in the likes of Bryan Cook, Boye Mafe, and Jonathan Allen making the Bengals' defense better, alongside obviously Dexter Lawrence, I think a full year or at least finishing last year with total continuity and bringing those five starters back along the offensive line is going to make them a lot better for the entirety of 2026, and that should send a pretty big statement to the rest of the NFL.
Even still, when you have a quarterback like Joe Burrow and two weapons like Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins paired with, in totality, a slightly above average roster, that's pretty much all that you need just to get into the playoffs and then do something in the playoffs.
When you have that elite talent at the top and now the rest of, you know, players four through 53 are at least good enough to get to that point, it's all the Bengals need.
If they stay healthy, I think they do outplay that 15th ranking and the roster looks a lot better going into 2027, at least from the outside looking in.
But this is a good starting point, and I think both Orlando Brown Jr. and Dylan Fairchild continuing to build off of what they did at the end of last year, it can help the offense be as dominant as they need to be.
Paired with at least a competent defense, this Bengals team can go far.
But I wanna hear from you guys.
Do you think the Bengals have the 15th best, most talented roster in the NFL?
Is that fair?
Is it too high or is it too low?
Let me know down in the comments below
