The Cincinnati Bengals have to invest in the offensive line, but the issues we saw in the Super Bowl are being vastly overblown.
Nobody wants to see Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow clutching his knee.
Nobody wants to see him lying on the turf and writhing in pain.
Of course, everybody can see the number of times Burrow has been hit through the first two years of his career and start to fear the worst. He already came back from a brutal knee injury in his rookie season to win Comeback Player of the Year and lead the Bengals to Super Bowl LVI.
Obviously, that’s not an ideal formula to try and stick to going forward. Obviously, the Cincinnati Bengals need to go out and find some offensive line help in the 2022 offseason.
But the issue for this team up front has been massively overblown by football fans and pundits alike.
It’s time to chill out on the Cincinnati Bengals’ offensive line woes
Everyone has heard the saying “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
Apparently, nobody is taking into consideration any sort of context when it comes to the rebuilding process for the Cincinnati Bengals.
Let’s all remember — this is a team that was the worst in the NFL in 2019. That was just two seasons ago.
The 2019 season was the first in a full-scale rebuild for the Bengals who, at that time, didn’t have their franchise QB in place.
The events that unfolded in 2019 led to Joe Burrow in 2020, and while Burrow certainly provided the Bengals with a bright future, selecting him number one overall in 2020 really marked the beginning of the Bengals’ rebuilding process.
There were pieces in place before that, but selecting Joe Burrow first overall in 2020 and building a draft class around him was really just the first or second step in assembling this roster.
The 2021 offseason, which was less than a year ago at this point, marked the first offseason where the Bengals were really able to build around Burrow.
They opted to take Ja’Marr Chase with the fifth overall pick and there’s no substantial argument against that being the right decision at this point. Chase put together a historic rookie season for the Bengals and is a superstar at one of the game’s most important positions.
They are not making the Super Bowl at all without the contributions Chase made as this team’s WR1 throughout the 2021 season.
Now, after Joe Burrow was hit left and right in Super Bowl LVI and the game ended on a QB hit and outstanding pressure from Aaron Donald, everyone wants to cry out from the rooftops the doom and gloom that awaits Joe Burrow if the Bengals don’t invest in the offensive line.
It’s insane to think that anyone in charge of the Bengals is oblivious to that.
The Bengals are basically two offseasons, three if you count the 2019 offseason without a quarterback in place, into a full-scale rebuild.
This kind of thing takes time.
There are only so many assets you can invest every offseason and the Bengals have still been in the “best player available” phase of drafting guys just to upgrade the level of talent on their roster, much less utilizing the draft to attack the pressing needs they may have.
They went from having the 1st overall pick in the NFL Draft just two offseasons ago to the 5th overall pick last year to now picking 31st in the 2022 NFL Draft.
The Bengals’ rapid ascent should be met with almost unanimous praise, yet there are already people freaking out over their offensive line.
With some of the most cap space in the NFL as well as their draft picks, nobody should be panicking just yet. The Bengals will be able to upgrade the offensive line in due time.