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Frank Pollack is back.
That’s a sentence the Cincinnati Bengals have leaned into hard this offseason while reworking the offensive line in front of Joe Burrow. The idea being, Pollack was so good compared to Jim Turner that his return will trigger a dramatic upswing for the returning parts.
And someone like starting center Trey Hopkins would seem to agree — largely based on how urgent the reps with Pollack are by comparison.
Here’s what he told Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com:
“You hear people say, you hear coaches say practice should be so hard so that the game is easy. With Coach Pollack, that is a real, that is a factual statement. It’s going to be another year, everyone sees, you guys will be out there and see it’s a different tempo. It’s a different pace this year.”
Hopkins noted the difference in terms of Pollack’s experience too:
“He knows the drills that he’s asking of you were going to be demanding. He knows that because he’s done it so you kind of have a little bit of a different respect for a guy like that when you know, when he’s just completely killing you and completely just running over you out at practice, but you know he himself has done it. You have a little bit higher little respect for him.”
The Bengals hope Pollack’s return doesn’t just spur proper development for Jonah Williams and rookie Jackson Carman, too. Some of the hope is that projects like Billy Price can also improve, providing a boost in performance for the depth along the line.
Based on the early reviews? Pollack is back, urgency is up and the players are all about it.
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