The Bengals Offensive Line is Being Left Out to Dry

Let’s get this out of the way. In its current form, the Bengals offensive line is bad. Is it Groundhog Day? It feels like we’ve been saying this ever since the team decided to lowball its cornerstones and let the likes of Andrew Whitworth and Kevin Zeitler walk. Are they cursed? Did Whitworth’s family commission those Etsy witches to curse the team? Is it like the Defense Against the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts in Harry Potter? If only it were so simple.

No, the Bengals just cannot develop offensive line talent anymore. Orlando Brown Jr. was a Pro Bowl player at one point and has struggled. Dylan Fairchild and Jalen Rivers are showing their rookie growing pains. All in all, they look like they will be fine, but as rookies, it’s incredibly difficult to just jump in and succeed. Ted Karras has taken a step back. Amarius Mims, the player everyone penciled in as the future franchise right tackle, has continuously battled injuries and is not playing to the elite athleticism they were sold on.

The unit cannot run block. Chase Brown and company are averaging 50 yards per game. The team has a grand total of 200 yards on the ground, 120 less than the next team. There are 24 individual players with more than 200 yards this year. “Oh, well, they’ve only run the ball 76 times, the fewest times in the NFL.” Yeah, but their 2.6 yards per carry is still the worst by 0.7 yards. They are worse than the Arthur Smith-led Pittsburgh Steelers.

Making Things Worse

When you have a unit as bad as the Bengals’ offensive line is, you have to be creative to minimize its impact. You see this all the time in the NFL; if a team has an ineffective unit, they go away from them or, at the very least, work around them. The Bengals’ offensive line being bad is not a unique phenomenon, and yet, it’s a yearly thing.

Taylor’s scheme puts more stress on the line than necessary. His offensive line coach has not been able to get any kind of tangible jump from any player. Conversely, they’ve all regressed!

At the same time, Browning is legitimately leaving the unit out to dry.

One of the most embarrassing plays last night was when Nik Bonnito and Jonathan Cooper shot past Mims and Brown and met at Browning within two seconds. On one hand, why are all three interior offensive linemen AND Samaje Perine quadruple-teaming one player? Well, Bonnito and Cooper released outside, and that should be on the tackles; Perine wouldn’t have been able to help. On the other hand, when you are on the road, quarterbacks tend to use the silent count. Browning waited until there was one second left on the play clock, setting up Bonnito and Cooper perfectly to sell out and fire off the snap. Those two are already great off the snap. Why make things easier?

A good coach would be able to recognize that his offensive line is a weakness, so he’d tailor the offense to neutralize that. Yes, there are games where you can’t do much, like the Kansas City Chiefs learned in both Super Bowl losses. At the same time, having bad offensive lines is not a problem unique to Cincinnati.

The Bengals’ offensive line is an issue. The fact that the Bengals are refusing to try and mitigate the issue is the thing that shows the coaching staff and front office are in over their heads.