The Cincinnati Bengals offensive line got very little respect entering the 2026 season, despite returning every starter from a promising 2025 season for the unit. One analyst even had this group ranked among the five worst o-lines in the NFL.
Thankfully, the unit we saw in Sunday’s 33-27 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers not only looked far better than that ranking, but it looked like one with the potential to be a strength in an offense that already has plenty of strengths.
Joe Burrow had a clean
pocket most of the game while taking just one sack, and he needed every bit of it to help ice this win.
As of Sunday evening, Pro Football Focus gave the Bengals a 76.3 pass-blocking grade for their performance vs. the Bucs. This unit had just three games with a higher grade in the entire 2025 season and just one in 2024.
A big reason for the rise of the Bengals offensive line has been right tackle Amarius Mims, and that was on full display Sunday for the 18th overall pick of the 2024 NFL Draft out of Georgia.
In 38 pass-blocking snaps, Mims did not allow a single pressure and earned an 84.5 pass-blocking grade from PFF. To give you an idea of how strong that is, that grade would have ranked sixth among all offensive tackles in the NFL last year over the entire season. It’s also the highest single-game grade of his career.
Mims did this while mostly blocking Buccaneers first-round pick Rueben Bain Jr., a popular mock draft target for the Bengals this offseason until they traded the 10th overall pick for Dexter Lawrence.
Against Mims, Bain was a ghost, finishing the game with a 40.1 PFF grade and no pressures.
If Mims keeps this up, he could be in line for a monster contract next offseason when he finally becomes extension-eligible.
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