Cincinnati Bengals: 3 Reasons for win vs. Browns in Week 12
By Kenn Korb
2. Finally, Some Solid Blocking
Speaking about reasons to get excited, it’s about time the offensive line for this team had a good game. It shouldn’t be that surprising that the group has struggled this season. They went into last offseason already looking poor (41 sacks allowed in 2016), then subsequently allowed the unit’s best two players (left tackle Andrew Whitworth and right guard Kevin Zeitler) to sign elsewhere.
This left the group trying to succeed with a starting lineup including an average left guard (Clint Boling), a center with one decent season (Russell Bodine), a couple of massively disappointing high picks at the tackles (Cedric Ogbuehi and Jake Fisher), and a second-year unknown at right guard (Trey Hopkins).
They’ve somehow been even worse than feared. From the outset of the season, this unit has been not only the undoubted worst position group on Cincinnati’s team, but also one of the worst offensive lines across the entire league in a year where line play has been notably bad. Injuries have forced nine different players to take snaps on the line, and seven of them have at least 236 snaps to their name; of that group, just one player grades out as average per Pro Football Focus Edge (Boling, with a 73.6 grade).
At least for this week, the much-maligned unit had a much better outing. After allowing 27 sacks in their first 10 games — nearly three per game — the offensive line allowed Andy Dalton to be taken to the ground just once against Cleveland, giving the quarterback time to successfully spread the ball around to his receivers.
Even more impressive were the holes they opened for Joe Mixon. The rookie running back entered with a career-high of 62 rushing yards and nearly doubled that this afternoon (114 yards) with an impressive 5.0 yards per carry.
This was all so important in how the Bengals were able to keep drives churning and continue adding to their lead. Pittsburgh will bring a much harder test (No. 4 DVOA Defense, versus No. 20 for Cleveland), but it can’t hurt for Cincinnati to enter that game finally having found some positives to move forward with involving the weakest area of their team.