Cincinnati Bengals QB Joe Burrow will need more help from his offensive line.
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Cincinnati Bengals QB Joe Burrow will need more help from his offensive line.
The Cincinnati Bengals have three superstars on offense, quarterback Joe Burrow and wide receivers Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins. Notice that an offensive lineman wasn’t mentioned.
The front five have been bad for years and there doesn’t seem to be any reason why it would get better. And, multiple report cards from the media would reflect exactly that sentiment (the Bengals might not want to take it home and get it signed by their parents).
The offensive line is so poor, that Pro Football Focus ranks it as the worst in the entire NFL. Dalton Wasserman breaks down the gory details.
“The Bengals ranked 29th in both PFF pass-blocking grade and PFF run-blocking grade last season, and it doesn’t appear that they will fare much better in 2025,” Wasserman writes.
“Center Ted Karras is the only returning player from last season who earned at least a 60.0 PFF overall grade,” he continues. “Left tackle Amarius Mims underwhelmed in his rookie season. The lowest-graded guard unit in football added only third-round pick Dylan Fairchild and veteran Lucas Patrick, who earned a 64.6 PFF grade in New Orleans in 2024.”
All of Cincinnati’s starters from 2024 are under contract in 2025, and it looks like they are prepared to run it back. They did cut Alex Cappa though, who kind of stood out as particularly not good.
Pro Football Network ranks Bengals No. 29
Compared to PFF, Pro Football Netork thinks very highly of the Bengals’ o-line. Instead of dead last, PFN has them all the way up at 29th in the NFL. Pop the champagne?
Joking aside, there seems to be a consensus around the stat heads that the Bengals offensive line is putrid. PFN says that they scored a 60.2 and were given a D- on their report card.
“Joe Burrow didn’t have much support in 2024, whether from his defense or his offensive line,” PFN writes. “It seems crazy to think that this line looked terrible, and yet Burrow might have actually been mitigating this group’s damage by getting the ball out early when he could (2.71-second time to throw).
“The Cincinnati Bengals’ 32nd-placed PBWR ranking matches their 30th-placed RBWR ranking pretty closely. Most of their other metrics don’t shape up too badly (15th in overall pressure rate and 19th in sack rate), but they’ve been vulnerable to the blitz.
“Despite Burrow ranking ninth in time to throw against the blitz, Cincinnati is 19th in pressure rate (41.3%) and 25th in sack rate (10.3%).
“This offseason takes us back to 2021 when the debate was whether they should invest in Ja’Marr Chase with the fifth pick in the NFL Draft or Penei Sewell. Once again, the debate will be where they prioritize resources, offensive line or wide receiver.”
Bengals’ line could be worse
Cincinnati is climbing the ladder even higher when judged by former Pro Bowl lineman Kyle Long and Leger Douzable on CBS Sports’ “Pushing the Pile” podcast.
They break NFL offensive lines in to five different tiers, and list the Benglas’ line in the C-Tier, which is the second worst (which really doesn’t make sense that it’s five tiers and starts with D). There are six teams that fall below Cincy down in the D-Tier, so Long and Douzable are being rather kind.
Maybe the Bengals’ coaches should pass out the media’s position grades at OTAs in hopes that it will motivate them to play better. And, to be fair to the offensive line, outside of the three aforementioned studs on offense, the rest of the team is pretty poor too.
Tell us in the comments what you think is the worst part of the Bengals!