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It wasn’t pretty at first, but the Cincinnati Bengals offensive line has finally matched high expectations set this offseason when the team replaced four of the five starters.
And a big part of that is just getting reps together on the field — and staying there.
As Dan Orlovsky pointed out, the Bengals lead all offensive lines in the NFL with 817 snaps together this season. That means no other five-man squad in the NFL has more snaps than the group of Jonah Williams, Cordell Volson, Ted Karras, Alex Cappa and La’el Collins.
That’s unexpected given the right side of the offensive line, and especially Collins, had attendance issues this summer. But that lack of getting reps together helped explain the slow start — and largely explains the great performance of the unit now (alongside some solid scheme adjustments).
Not the only example, but a good one? Joe Burrow suffered 13 sacks over the first two games — with only 22 over the other 11, suffering six-multi sack games in the process.
As expected, chemistry and reps together, plus schematic tweaks, explains the uptick for the offense.
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