Over the past few seasons, the clear Achilles Heel of the Cincinnati Bengals has been pass protection. With elite quarterback Joe Burrow and his signature elusiveness in the pocket, Cincinnati has been able to remain a functional unit but there is no doubt that the offensive line is still the biggest weakness on the roster. The roster has improved dramatically with key additions over the past few seasons but there is certainly cause to be skeptical.
Cincinnati Bengals Offensive Line Ranked Highly By Major Publication
After each of the past few offseasons in Cincinnati, there has been a strong push to improve on play up front offensively after the team finished in the bottom ten in the league in the category each season. In 2022, the team went out and brought in interior offensive linemen Cordell Volson, Ted Karras and Alex Cappa. In 2023, the team acquired Orlando Brown Jr. to fill the void and left tackle and just a few weeks ago, Cincinnati signed Trent Brown to improve the right tackle position.
Now, even after surrendering a season that left Burrow on the injured reserve list for the second time in his short career, there is concerning optimism regarding the offensive line going into 2024. Ben Baldwin of the Athletic recently took to Twitter to share his team rankings for the 2024 season based on pass protection scores over the past few seasons. Even after allowing Burrow to be bullied into missing the entire second half of 2023, Baldwin has high hopes for next season.
Quick thread on offensive line starters leading up to draft as I wait for code to run What if we tried to guess offensive line strength given the 5 starters listed on Ourlads and their past performance in pass protection (as measured by grade)? This is what it might look like pic.twitter.com/drVEjPMK7r
— Computer Cowboy (@benbbaldwin) April 8, 2024
While the majority of this list looks pretty solid, selecting Cincinnati at the seventh overall position for 2024 seems like a stretch. On top of that, the rankings gave Volson an abysmal score of 34 at the left guard position. Aside from that, the rest of the line seems heavily inflated after virtually every player looked frail against the pass rush last season. Brown, who is ranked highly with an 84 grade by the Twitter rankings at the left tackle position, was particularly bad as he allowed seven sacks last season.
Trent Brown, the team’s new behemoth at the right tackle position, is a major upgrade but he is much stronger as a run blocker. Even with his massive size, he has struggled to keep his quarterback upright as he gave up three sacks on limited snaps with a run-heavy New England offense last season.
While I certainly believe there will be a sizeable improvement, ranking this team in the top ten in pass rush specifically seems like a major overestimation.
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