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Bengals Offensive Line: What the Film Reveals Ahead of Week 2 vs. Texans

The Bengals are 1-0 this season. Their offensive line helped them beat the Bucs in Week 1.
Mike Santagata|
Bengals offensive line creates a clean pocket for Joe Burrow
Bengals offensive line creates a clean pocket for Joe Burrow | Cara Owsley

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Cincinnati Bengals

Arguably the strongest performance for the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 1 was the offensive line unit. They definitively won their matchup against a stout Tampa Bay Buccaneers defensive line. In the pass game, they were extremely clean with the lowest pressure rate allowed in the entire NFL. In the run game, they were 8th in rushing EPA added this week. All of this success started up front.

Pass Protection

Joe BUrrow
Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow (9) sets up under center in the fourth quarter of the NFL Week 1 game between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Paycor Stadium in Cincinnati on Sunday, Sept. 13, 2026. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

With the way the Bengals like to play on offense, there are generally quite a bit of snaps where there will be offensive linemen left one on one with a defender. In these scenarios, the Bengals duo of offensive tackles were excellent.

Orlando Brown Jr spent most of his time against Yaya Diaby on the left side of the offensive line. Yaya Diaby may not be an all-pro but he’s an ascending young player with 19 sacks over the last 3 seasons. In just the last two years he has racked up 64 pressures and 39 QB hits. This Sunday against the Bengals, however, he had a goose-egg: 0 sacks, 0 QB hits, and 0 pressures.

Brown won this matchup due to his overwhelming length and strength. Even on plays where Diaby was able to stress him with speed, Brown recovered and was able to get his hands on Diaby. Not only did Brown blanket Diaby, but he also made it look easy.

On the opposite side was Amarius Mims against the Buccaneers 15th overall pick Rueben Bain Jr. Similar to Diaby, Bain ended the game with 0 sacks, 0 QB hits, and 0 pressures for his NFL debut and similar to Brown, Mims made it look easy.

Mims played with patient hands and quick feet in this match-up. He was able to routinely beat Bain to the spot and never got caught lunging or reaching out to block him. Mims essentially forced Bain to attempt to win through him with power which is near impossible to do.

The tackles were fantastic in pass protection but arguably more impressive was the offensive line’s ability on stunts.

One of the most important parts of passing a stunt is making sure to get a good punch on the penetrator of the stunt. Ideally, the punch knocks that player both back and over toward the adjacent offensive lineman receiving him. The other part is to make sure that both offensive linemen keep their levels and are able to seamlessly hand-off the penetrator while being in good position to receive the looper.

You can see how Dalton Risner punches into the penetrator on this T-E stunt. It’s the second push that he gives that is key. Amarius Mims responds by closing the gap between them and taking over that block. Risner is then able to shift and take the looper now that the penetrator has been effectively handed off. There are many instances where the lineman punching into that penetrator ends up off balance because they put too much force into the punch or the adjacent offensive lineman is too far away or off level with him. This play may look easy but that’s simply because Risner and Mims played their parts perfectly.

The Buccaneers attempted all types of stunts and fronts to try to stress the communication of the Bengals OL but Cincinnati repeatedly passed the test. This communication and work against stunts is something that the Bengals offensive line has struggled with in years past, but on Sunday they showed that they were an entirely new unit.

Run Blocking

Chase Brown
Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow hands the ball off to running back Chase Brown against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday, Sept. 13. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

The run blocking was a bit more of a mixed bag than the pass protection, however, there was plenty of good to take away. One of the main takeaways from this game is how the Bengals were able to run block from under center formations.

When the Bengals were under center, Chase Brown had a 40% success rate on his runs. When they were in shotgun, Brown had a 20% success rate on his runs. It’s likely that the shotgun runs will improve (Brown had a 42.2% success rate on shotgun runs last season) and it’s encouraging to see Brown have success running from under center.

The Bengals under center run game is going to be very important for them going forward if they really do want to commit to finding ways to get more explosive as an offense. The under center run game is a tool that they can utilize that allows them to get to the under center play action game which is something they have lacked for the past few years.

The best run that the Bengals had from under center on Sunday was duo.

Duo is essentially power without a puller. The offensive line blocks the same as they would on the power concept except there is no one to pull and wrap. This creates vertical movement and multiple reads for the back.

This is about as good as it gets for duo. It starts with an excellent double team from Risner and Mims that uproots that 3 technique and takes care of the linebacker behind him. Arguably the most important (and difficult) block of the concept is the frontside tight end. That tight end needs to block a defensive end one on one. Drew Sample erases Rueben Bain Jr on the play by getting his hands underneath and inside of Bain. Erick All Jr is motioned over and used to dig out the safety on this specific duo concept and he easily completes that task. Last but not least is the wide receiver block on the corner. Tee Higgins shows that he’s bought in to play this under center offense by not just getting in the corner’s way but making contact and punching into him. Brown can go completely untouched into the end zone as a result.

The Bengals will need to build a play action game off of duo which should be fairly easy for them. Duo is one of the concepts that is easiest to use for play action.

Cincinnati is inserting the wide receiver through the C gap and having him run a corner route. That bluffs a common block on duo where the receiver is motion down and asked to insert through the C gap to make a block on the safety. Drew Sample fakes his normal block against the defensive end which gets him wide open in the flat. This becomes a very easy pitch and catch from Burrow to Sample and it picks up 10 yards and a first down for them.

It would be great to see them build another concept where Burrow remains in the pocket while the receivers work deeper down the field as well. How they plan to build the play action game around the under center run game is something to look for in the coming weeks.

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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.

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