On the eve of the season, Bengals offensive coordinator Dan "Nostradamus," Pitcher predicted a break-out season for Amarius Mims in his third year and the right tackle who turns 24 in two weeks has turned out to be a plague to pass rushers everywhere.
No NFL tackle is near Mims when it comes to most snaps with no pressures allowed with 111. Pro Football Focus goes on to say that after allowing nothing Sunday to Steelers All-Pro T.J. Watt on most of his 57 snaps, Mims is ranked the NFL's second-best pass-blocking right tackle with at least 100 snaps.
Is Mims ready to have the torch passed?
The only one in front of him is the standard at the position for the last decade, the Eagles' two-time All-Pro and six-time Pro Bowler Lane Johnson.
"There's a lot of really talented people, but there's a fraction of the players in this league that truly can be special and he is in that fraction," Pitcher said Monday.
"T.J. Watt is one of the best to ever do that job. To be matched up one-on-one as often as he was without help yesterday (he got some, but not a lot), and to just be consistent and to take the right set. There's such a confidence for him in knowing, 'If I just take this set on the angle that I need to take it on and my eyes are in the right place and I strike when I'm supposed to strike,' there's very little the guy across from him can do to counter that. He just has to stay on the path he's on."
And Mims is already trying to do that and is already focusing on former overall No. 1 pick Travon Walker, in here with the Jaguars for Sunday's game (1 p.m.-Cincinnati's Local 12) at Paycor Stadium coming off 1.5-sack game in the big win over Cleveland.
"That's what you sign up for. The elite. Play it every week. That's the NFL," Mims said Monday.
In PFF's overall ranking among right and left tackles, Mims is the sixth-best pass blocker on a star-studded list of Denver's Garrett Bolles, Tampa Bay's Tristan Wirfs, Johnson, the Dolphins' Patrick Paul, and the Raiders' Kolton Miller.
"He's practicing hard. He's really taking it to heart what we need out of him, said Bengals head coach Zac Taylor. "T.J. is a heck of a player. We're not going to fall asleep on that. I told Mims before the game and during the game. Don't have an ego about it. If you need something. He handled it really well. He had command and a lot of confidence."
The Bengals may have to make some moves this week to get through the Jags' game. Taylor ruled out rookie wide receiver Cobie Young (knee) when he got hurt in his first NFL start on the game's first snap making a two-yard catch.
He's unsure about the status of two safeties, starter Bryan Cook and backup Kyle Dugger, and hopes to know more Wednesday.
Taylor's not sure of a timeline on Young, but he already doesn't have No. 3 wide receiver Andrei Iosivas (thumb), on injured reserve, behind Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins.
First-year wide receiver Dohtne Meyers got a career-high 32 baptism snaps in Pittsburgh and had three catches for 29 yards on five targets. His 23-yard catch-and-run out of the slot converted quarterback Joe Burrow's first third down of the game, a third-and-two from the Bengals 49 on the way to Chase's three-yard touchdown catch to cap the first series.
Taylor was impressed with how Meyers responded to suddenly having his role severely expand after the first play.
"I thought he had a really good feel for what we asked him to do. Block some big guys," Taylor said. "It's hard because certain guys you put in there, the personnel groupings are going to change on defense, and so sometimes Dohnte draws a difficult task with his responsibility, and I thought he gave everything he possibly could to make those blocks we needed from him.
"He did a good job understanding the game plan and the tweaks that we needed with him in there … It might not look like it on the stat sheet because you know he got (three catches) yesterday, but I thought that he did a great job of doing the things we need to do to be functional on offense with Colbie going down."
Meyers is one of these no-nonsense pros who already has two years in the game in the CFL. As he left the locker room Monday, he carried a book the Bengals give to all their first-year NFL guys, _Atomic Habits_ by James Clear.
"I read it in college, so I'm re-reading it now," Meyers said. "It's a lifestyle. When I read it the first time, a lot of things resonated. You can break down the gap between your goal and then making it a reality with the habits of how you structure your life."
Three snaps after Meyers got that first down, he was called for a false start.
"I twitched my elbow. A little detail you can't afford to have. That's a mental error," Meyers said. "You just have to go back and hone the details. Once everybody is set you can't move."
Meyers said it wouldn't have been a flag in Canada, where there's more free-flowing motion. But he said that's not a problem.
"I had a harder adjustment going to Canada than coming back here because this is the game I grew up playing," Meyers said.
After wide receiver Ke'Shawn Williams fumbled a punt at the Steelers 14 early in the fourth quarter in one of Sunday's pivotal plays. Taylor said Monday they're still working through a decision to see if he'll do it against the Jags. Before Iosivas got hurt, Meyers had flawlessly done the deed in the first two games and could go back there again.
On Monday, special teams coordinator Darrin Simmons talked about the balance of destroying a player's confidence and protecting the team.
"It's something I'm always very sensitive to because you never want to take a player's stinger away," Simmons said Monday. "But at the same time, we have a bigger responsibility. It's the responsibility of putting our team in the best situation to win.
"And so that's something we'll have to talk through throughout this week and see what we feel like is the best way to go. There's a lot of factors that go into that. It's other parts of the roster and injuries to other parts of the roster, and it's something we haven't even completely talked about yet or settled in on. But I am very sensitive to that. Ke'Shawn's trying to make a play, too and just made a bad play worse. Just unfortunate."
Simmons, the longest-tenured kicking coach in the league, isn't used to a day like Sunday, when two Steeler punts led to the game turning. Before Williams' fumble led to a field goal, defensive end Cedric Johnson was called for roughing the punter on a penalty that led to a Steelers' touchdown in the 30-27 loss.
According to PFF, the Bengals had the NFL's best special teams unit in 2024 and No. 4 last season. They haven't had a roughing the kicker penalty this decade, and have two lost fumbled punts since 2022, the last one when Charlie Jones lost one in the 2024 opener.
Here's what Simmons thought happened to Williams:
"I think he just lost concentration there for a second. I think he peeked up at the gunner and just lost the ball in flight, lost concentration. He's got to trust the fact that the vice guy's going to get the gunner stopped, but he just can't lose concentration on the ball. He peeked up at the last second and just lost sight of him."
The first time the Steelers punted Sunday, with the Bengals leading 20-17 and 6:48 left in the third quarter, Simmons unleashed them to block the punt. He saw something on tape and Johnson was close to a block that really would have changed the game.
"It's something that I felt very confident in that we could get a lot of pressure on him, and we did," Simmons said. "Ced got too close to him. I think it's a situation for Ced where the only way that you can get situations like that is to be live in a game. We can rep all the stuff we want in practice, but he's going to block it each time in practice when that happens. But I think it's got to be a feel for him that he's got to make a decision and it's a millisecond decision.
"If I can get there, I've got to take the chance and go get it and I got to block it. I've got to get a hand on it. But if I can't, then I've got to pull off. That's a very, very tough call for somebody to make in a millisecond."
That first play of the last Bengals' do-or-die drive just before the two-minute warning where quarterback Joe Burrow was gesturing about having to take a timeout with 2:08 left to beat the play clock?
"It was just my fault," said Taylor, who calls the plays. "There's no conversation that I need to have with somebody else when I make a mistake, so it was my fault."
The last play of the game? That sack-strip of Burrow by Steelers defensive tackle Derrick Harmon that ended it all with 44 seconds left?
"This was a bad play I'll remember for a long time," said right guard Dalton Risner Monday. "I'm not going to make excuses. I'm not going to try and make it sound better. I gave up a sack, and it resulted in a fumble, and the result was the game was over. A tough pill to swallow. I'm going to swallow it and be a man about it. Go back to the drawing board and continue to work."
Risner is in his second season as a Bengal after he immediately became a highly-regarded figure in the locker room, where he gives off a welcoming vibe to the young players, as well as in the community, where he's been known to deliver inspiring motivational speeches about his life and faith.
Risner, 31, did it again Monday, recalling how Burrow sought him out on the bus after the game to check on his health and how well the line played and …
"He hasn't mentioned it to me," Risner said. "On the bus, I looked him in the eye and said, 'Hey man, I'm the one who let you down. I'm going to be better. I'm not going to let that happen.' Joe Burrow is a great pro, a great teammate."
What makes it so much tougher for Risner is he was part of such a brilliant day for an O-line that gouged out 4.7 yards per for 13 runs by Chase Brown against the always stingy Steelers and a line that didn't let Burrow go down until that last play.
"We did a lot of great things on offense. I had a great game up until the last football play, but I could care less because you want to win games," said Risner, who believes he's vastly improved over last year.
"I've improved in the run game where I'm moving people … and, honestly guys, I've got to get better on two pass plays. This one and one last week. … We could sit here and talk about a lot of encouraging things, but the thing is to get better and win games."
Tight end Erick All Jr. got a lot of love for jumping into the pile in an attempt to get that last fumble at midfield that Risner just missed as he tried to out-leverage with his shoulders Steelers edge Sebastian Day-Joseph.
"What's cool is Erick All is a tough S.O.B and one of my favorite teammates," Risner said. "I'm sure someone touched (Day-Joseph), so it's over.
"But Erick All comes running downfield, and Erick is like the last person on that pile and two minutes on the ground somehow managed to get in there and take it from a defensive tackle. That's just who he is. I love that guy."
It didn't go unnoticed by the head man.
"He's in the end zone, basically, on a double post look," Taylor said. "For him to just run like he did, try to get back involved, somehow come out of the pile with the ball, just speaks to everything you've heard me sit up here and say about him. He's a football player. He loves it. He wants to be on the field. He's deserving of the opportunity." …
After playing five snaps in his season debut, getting a sack last week along with a game ball for his comeback from missing all training camp with a knee injury, edge Shemar Stewart was dressed, but didn't play.
"There's going to be moments we get Shemar more involved. (Sunday) just didn't work out that way, and he's still nine practices in, really, started practicing three weeks ago," Taylor said. "Happy with him. He's got a great effort, great attitude, and so there will be moments where we're able to get him more plays.
"There will be times where maybe he goes from a small number to 25-30. You just never know. He's had a good attitude about it. And (Sunday) was just one of those days where we had four guys (Boye Mafe, Myles Murphy, Cashius Howelkl, Ced Johnson) playing and playing well." …
That last play as Burrow stared at the Steelers from the Pittsburgh 38?
"We got quarters (coverage) and we're throwing a post to Tee, and so it's a matchup we like," Taylor said.
Pitcher on the protection: "We felt like we'd done a really good job all day. Those guys executing the protection plan. We had a good call, and we had kind of help across the board for everybody. There's one guy that had a true one-on-one, and their guy won on that play. Joe's trying to escape and throw the ball away so that we don't get sacked out of field goal range, and they're able to knock the ball out." …