Bengals Breakdown: Analyzing Orlando Brown Jr.'s Week 2 Performance vs Josh Hines-Allen

In Scott Peters' strike system a “clamp” strike is known as a punch that attacks either the outside shoulder or inside shoulder of the pass rusher. The reasoning for using this type of strike is to prevent the pass rusher from winning inside or outside and trying to force that player to win through the lineman instead. This is right up Brown Jr.’s alley. He is going to be very difficult to bull rush at his size.

You can see that both of Brown Jr.’s hands are on the “clamp points” of Hines-Allen on this play, which allows for him to win the rep by forcing Hines-Allen to attempt to beat him with power through his body.

Hines-Allen attempted to win through Brown Jr.’s body with a bull rush and Brown Jr. easily refits his outside hand underneath of Hines-Allen and rides him inside to end the pass rush. Brown Jr. clearly shows preparation not just for the way Hines-Allen plays but also for the weaknesses that exist within his technique.

While he spent most of the game going for these double clamp strikes, he also changed things up on occasion to present a different look to Hines-Allen. On this play, he’s going for an inside clamp with an outside pillar strike. Brown Jr. is completely on an island on this play as Dylan Fairchild is working with the center so the inside clamp is used because he does not have inside help. The outside pillar strike is used to disrupt Hines-Allen on the rush which works as it stops him in his tracks.

Once again, Brown is going for the double clamp strike which is what he used most of the game. You can see in this clip just how difficult it is for Hines-Allen to bull through Brown Jr. Hines-Allen gets lifted off of his feet by the ginormous left tackle. Once Brown refits underneath and hops, he is able to completely stall Hines-Allen’s rush.

Brown Jr. had a couple of reps against the Jaguars other pass rusher Travon Walker as well. Walker is more of a power rusher that wanted to utilize his size, speed, and strength to bully the offensive tackle.

Still, Brown Jr. went for a double clamp strike against him and wanted to test strength on strength. Brown Jr. comes out on top on this play as he easily anchors in against Walker by refitting his inside hand underneath of Walker and redirecting the force.

Not A Shutout

Hines-Allen did have three pressures in this game. The first of which came on 1st-and-20 where Brown Jr. went for an outside hand flash.

By flashing his outside hand, Brown Jr. is attempting to get Hines-Allen to throw out his move so that he can punch into Hines-Allen’s chest and win the rep afterward. The issue is that Hines-Allen does not fall for the flash from Brown Jr. which allows for Hines-Allen to gain the outside. Simply put, Brown Jr.’s attempt to change things up caused him to lose on this rep.

The second pressure occurred on the very next play which was also the play in which Joe Burrow injured his toe.

This is less of a clean loss for Brown Jr. and more of an unclean stunt handoff. Brown Jr. is again going for his double clamp strike it seems but Hines-Allen still is able to push to his inside. Fairchild is pre-occupied at the moment with the defensive tackle but Brown Jr. needs to pass off Hines-Allen to him as it seems there is an E-T stunt coming. He eventually does get the stunt passed off but the flash of Hines-Allen is enough to move Burrow off of his initial spot.

The third and final pressure of the game is not one I would charge to Brown Jr. though:

Keep in mind when evaluating offensive line play that offensive linemen do not have eyes in the back of their head. Brown Jr. is in control and taking his man around what should be the back of the pocket. The issue is that the running back got bulldozed in this scenario making it so Jake Browning is unable to step up.

Instead, Browning elects to run out of the pocket to his right. Now instead of Brown Jr. taking his man around the outside of the pocket, his man is able to run down Browning. What should have been a win for Brown Jr. ends up in a pressure for Hines-Allen because of a botched running back pickup in pass protection.

All things considered, one clean loss and a messy stunt handoff is a very nice day in the office for Brown Jr. against one of the better pass rushers in the league.

Hines-Allen had 34 pass rushes on the day and a majority of those came against Brown Jr. who was not given much help throughout the game. His ability to take on a rusher like Hines-Allen without help allows for the Bengals offense to provide help elsewhere throughout a game and to open things up to get five players quickly into the pass pattern. If Brown Jr. continues to play like this going forward, then he is going to earn himself an extension in Cincinnati.