Boye Mafe arrived from Seattle Thursday to sign on as the newest Bengals pass rusher with a hand that was recently fitted for a Super Bowl ring. He likes the feel of it and that's one of the reasons he's here.
"They've been to the dance. That's something that attracted me. Thery know what it's like," said Mafe as he arrived at Paycor Stadium Thursday morning to take his physical.
"They know how to get there. Just coming from the Super Bowl, I want to go back. You want to bring that back to the city and to have the chance to do that here would be amazing."
With All-Pro sacker Trey Hendrickson now a Raven, Mafe likes the vision the coaches have unfolded for him in the Bengals' scheme: "I've been called on for the pass rush and to help us elevate the defense."
But the 6-4, 261-pound Mafe brings more to the table than the 44 pressures and 40 hurries Pro Football Focus gave him during the Seahawks' domination of last season, which would have led the Bengals in both categories.
Mafe also brings a good rep on the edge against the run, where PFF gave him Seattle's best grade in 2024. Then, when Seattle added elite run defender Demarcus Lawrence last year and Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald used Mafe as an outside backer in a 3-4, he showed his versatility with 44 coverage snaps.
Now that Mafe is out of the shadow of Seattle's deep Super Bowl rotation, where he played 50% of the snaps on mainly early downs, the Bengals are looking to unleash Mafe's ample pass-rush skills on more plays and particularly on third down. That's what he did in head coach Pete Carroll's final season in Seattle in 2023, when Mafe played all three downs in his second year and had nine sacks while setting the club record for most consecutive games.
"That's definitely the mindset," said Mafe of getting back to that three-down role.
And, according to PFF, last year's pressure rate of 13.2%, pass rush win rate of 12.2%, and 18.5% pressure rate on drop-backs lasting longer than 2.5 seconds put him in the yard of solid edge rushers even though he wasn't on the field much on third down.
Macdonald said at last month's NFL scouting combine that Mafe had the Super Bowl champs' quickest move off the ball.
"I think Boye played really good football for us," Macdonald told Gregg Bell of the _Tacoma News Tribune._ "I mean, for the guys that we had in our roster, and then him taking the role that he had was great. The way he plays the edge is a great complement to the rest of the guys."