All Bengals

Bengals Film Breakdown: Amarius Mims Takes Step Forward, Still Room to Improve

Mims started the season slow, but has grown over the past few months.
Mike Santagata|
Katie Stratman

In this story:

Cincinnati Bengals

Progression is not always linear. Typically, players don’t improve a little bit every single week of their career until they hit a plateau. This is true for last year’s first round pick, Amarius Mims.

After a rookie season that had flashes of high end play but generally was too inconsistent, he started the year at the same level, if not worse than that which left fans worried that he would not improve from his rookie year.

Despite the slow start, he has generally improved over the course of this season and is now playing the best football of his career. Let’s take a look into what areas have improved and where he could still grow as a player:

Run Blocking

The biggest difference between this season and last season for Mims is that he is playing fast and understands what he is doing in the run game. Take this play for example:

This is an impressive play from Mims where he quickly lines up the linebacker and takes a great angle to meet him and make this block. His athleticism at 340 pounds is on full display here but also his understanding of angles and how to make this block. The angle of departure that he takes is not directly at the linebacker but rather where that linebacker will be when he flows with the jet sweep. This is also the second week in a row where he made this block.

The main area of improvement that he could make here is that he needs to sustain and finish this block, but his ability to get to the backer and block him is an impressive display of athleticism and understanding of angles.

This was the most impressive variation of this block because Mims finished the defender with a pancake in space. He then continued on to the safety and got a piece of him as well. If the receivers made better blocks, there is a possibility that this could have gone for a touchdown on the back of Mims’s blocks.

Another example of his improved feel for the game is that he responds well to post-snap movement.

TJ Watt is spiking inside here as part of a blitz and Mims does an excellent job of remaining calm and adjusting to make the block. Not only does Mims seal off Watt but he is able to drive and pin him to widen this hole. That makes it extremely easy for Chase Brown to run through and get to the second level untouched. 

An area that he can continue to work on is his ability to strain, sustain, and finish blocks. Mims generally does a good job of initially getting to his assignment but he does not always hold that block and this can allow his defender to shed late and get involved in making the tackle.

Here he does a great job of getting to the second level but he allows for the linebacker to knock his hands away which leads to the block not being sustained. It does not seem like there’s an innate ability that is causing Mims to not consistently sustain his blocks but rather a matter of technique.


There are glimpses of what he can do when he is able to get in great position with his hands as well.

Here he strains and sustains against Quinnen Williams and is successful because he gets his backside hand onto the shoulder pad of Williams. Sustaining this block allows for the back to get to the second level behind him and pick up positive yards. Williams is trying to work back into that gap but Mims’s outside hand is tight and the arm is bent to provide him more strength. This does not allow Williams to work back that way.

Overall, Mims has become an adequate run blocker with some flashes of high end ability. He can be used as a bit of a weapon on jet sweep plays because of his athletic ability and understanding of angles. If he can improve his ability to strain, sustain, and finish then he can become a plus run blocker for this team. It’s a notable improvement compared to last season when he was an inconsistent run blocker.

Pass Protection

Mims was a better pass protector than run blocker last season, but still had his warts in that area. Similar to his run blocking, his flaws continued early into the season with an inconsistent ability to pick up stunts and a weak inside that defenders could exploit. That seems to have changed some as the season has continued.

Over the last couple of weeks, Mims has done a great job of redirecting and washing defenders inside when they try to work that way against him.

On this play Mims has no help whatsoever as the right guard is working away from him and there is no one to his outside to funnel that rusher inside either. In a true one-on-one scenario, Mims does a great job of keeping an inside half relationship to the defensive end.

This puts him in great position to drop his post (inside) foot and work back toward his inside if the rusher attacks him there. He does and Mims then shows off some of his strength as he washes him out of the play.

Similarly, here he is working Watt inside and finishing him after the star defensive end attempts an inside move:

Once again Mims keeps the inside half relationship with Watt, which leaves him in a great position to protect his inside. Patience and body positioning are too things that it seems like Mims has worked on to become a better pass protector this season.

With that said, Mims is still weakest in one-on-one situations when a pass rusher goes inside:

Just one kick too many and Mims ends up head up on Watt rather than on his inside. Watt baited this by stuttering at the top of his rush which led to Mims taking a kick even though Watt stopped rushing forward. This allows Watt to then chop and spin to the inside for a decisive victory over the second year right tackle.

The other area for Mims that has improved from last season is his work on stunts.

Mims and Dalton Risner make this TEX stunt look easy with how efficiently they work together. The overload front that New England is playing in this situation is an indicator that a stunt could be coming. Mims does a great job of remaining tight and on the same level as Risner during this play knowing that a stunt is likely. Mims does a great job of quickly taking over the defender so that Risner can prepare for the looper that is coming his way.

It’s a small sample size, but Risner and Mims have done an excellent job with stunts over the last two weeks. His work with Jalen Rivers was a bit more inconsistent. There were plays where they smoothly passed things off but there were also more mental and communication errors.

On this play, Mims should pass that end off to Rivers and then take the man to his outside. This would allow for everyone to get picked up in pass protection but instead through either a communication or mental error, Mims ends up hanging on the end which puts two defenders against the running back. The result is a sack due to Mims’s error.

This is the opposite end of that where Mims should hang on the slanting defensive end, but plays this as if Rivers is going to take him. It’s an unnecessary pressure given up because he was not on the same page as his rookie counterpart.

Mims has always been difficult to bull rush or beat to the outside because of his size and athleticism. While he’s clearly made strides, he needs to continue to refine his game when it comes to protecting his inside and communicating with his adjacent guard.

Hopefully, Mims and Risner continue to work well together as the veteran seems to have developed a solid relationship with the young right tackle. He has a tougher matchup this week in Joey Bosa who has racked up 35 pressures and five sacks for the Bills. Bosa also surprisingly still has the 12th fastest get off in the entire NFL among qualified defenders. A test against Bosa and this Bills defense will show just how far Mims has come this season.

Published
Mike Santagata
MIKE SANTAGATA

Mike Santagata is an offensive line and film expert. He's written and analyzed Bengals film for the past four years. He also hosts the Always Gameday in Cincinnati podcast and is a regular guest on the Locked On Bengals podcast.

Share on XFollow @bengals_sans
Home/AllBengals Insiders+