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Bengals Film Breakdown: Will Hakeem Adeniji Solidify Right Tackle Spot With La'el Collins Out?

Hakeem Adeniji is expected to start at right tackle with La'el Collins out for the rest of the 2022 season.

Mike Santagata

In this story:

Bengals right tackle La’el Collins tore his ACL and MCL in Saturday's win over the Patriots. Collins was having one of his best games of the season when he went down. 

Hakeem Adeniji took over for Collins at right tackle. The Bengals hope that Adeniji can keep the ship afloat during this final stretch and in the postseason. Let’s take a look into just how well Adeniji played in relief of Collins.

Pass Protection

The area that most Bengals fans are curious about is pass protection. Above all else, keeping the quarterback upright is the most important goal of a Bengals' offensive lineman. They are a spread offense that relies on throwing the football more than running it. With a superstar quarterback and elite wide receiver group, who can blame them?

Adeniji is an athletic tackle that can fire out of his stance. He moves well for his size and should be able to set out to wide rushers. He should be able to meet any speed rusher along their path and create an obstacle for them. It’s also nice to be able to rely on athleticism when other issues have caused an imperfect pass set.

To go with this athleticism, Adeniji does a good job of maintaining a positive position in pass protection. Once he wins against a pass rusher, he would typically sustain that block and not allow a late win from his opposition.

On this rep for example he does a great job of getting to an advantageous position against Matthew Judon. The flash of his hands caused Judon to prematurely use his move, which allowed Adeniji to then try to punch and latch into him. When Judon whiffs he does a great job of transitioning from that cross-chop into a bull rush. This catches Adeniji somewhat off guard, but he is able to anchor in and finish the block without allowing a pressure. Adeniji could do a better job of tightening his hands to protect his chest, but otherwise, this is a pretty good rep from him and highlights both the athleticism and ability to sustain.

It was surprising to see that Adeniji and Alex Cappa were able to communicate pretty well to pass off stunts. It could just be the small sample size, but they were able to handle what the Patriots were trying to do to stress their communication.

This play does involve some help from the tight end and they do have the slide working towards them from the center, but nevertheless, it’s a good trade-off from the young right tackle and his teammate. It’s a different beast to be able to do that when you’re working away from the slide without help, but all things considered, this is a pretty nice rep from the duo.

That takes us to the areas that were a concern in the passing game.

Adeniji was inconsistent with hitting his landmarks in pass protection. This led to him oversetting or undersetting at times which allowed the Patriots' pass rushers to win around him either to the inside or outside. Missing his landmarks allowed pass rushers to win quickly against him. While he did a good job on Saturday when he was able to get into a position of advantage, this inconsistency in his set made it so he could not consistently get into that position. The other issue shown in that video is how hard he reacted to an inside jab from Josh Uche. He needs to remain patient in his set, so that he doesn't fall for jabs and other setup moves.

It would certainly help him to hit his landmarks if he could time up the snap count consistently. This is something that should get better with time and experience, but as of this moment, he has reps where it doesn’t seem as if he has the timing down on the snap. You can still see in these clips some of the other areas of his game that I mentioned. His ability to hold positions of advantage and his athleticism to still get out to these defenders when he mistimes the snap both stand out.

Lastly, he has an issue with allowing his feet to die. When he stops his feet after making contact, he allows the rusher to still gain the edge by working around him. He had reps where this was not the case, but he needs to be more consistent with it.

I don't think that Adeniji is going to be a large step down from Collins in terms of pass protection. Collins was struggling in that area all season. He could consistently get to his spot, but he failed to maintain his blocks. 

Adeniji may be more inconsistent on getting to his spot, but he can maintain his blocks better. It’s not better, but it is on par with what Collins was doing.

Run Blocking

When it comes to run blocking, some of these pass protection traits show up. Adeniji’s athleticism is something the Bengals have been missing at the right tackle spot. Collins was able to provide some power allowing the line when asked to block straight ahead or to work with Cappa on double teams. Adeniji doesn't have the same raw power.

While Collins would maul guys on these double teams, that is not the only way to add value in run blocking. Adeniji is working a trey block with the tight end Devin Asiasi. Asiasi provides clinic tape on how to bump and climb, but it’s Adeniji who sustains the block on the end. This play showcases how Adeniji will work on these double teams. He’s not going to maul guys like Collins, but he can sustain blocks and maintain his leverage.

The aforementioned athleticism shows up here when he’s asked to pull across the line from his tackle spot. This play gets called back for a holding penalty, but this is a play call that the Bengals could not get to with Collins. The furthest they could ask him to pull was to the nose tackle as part of their tackle trap concept. Here they’re asking Adneiji to pull all the way off the opposite tackle. He performs this difficult assignment and it should be a walk in touchdown for Joe Mixon. A holding call brings it back, but that has nothing to do with Adeniji’s athletic pull.

This is the Bengals pin pull wide zone concept and early on it’s a great rep for Adeniji. Adeniji gets into good position with his athleticism and ability to fire off of the ball. He runs into an issue here as he never really gets his hands on the defender. He gets his helmet across the defender like he’s supposed to but then never drives his backside hand into him. This allows the defender to go backdoor on Adeniji and almost make the stop. He needs to drive his backside hand into the defender to displace them on these plays.

Finally, this rep of wide zone shows that Adeniji can sustain these reach blocks. Before the bump from Cappa even arrives, Adeniji does a great job of getting into position. He has his helmet across to the play side of the defender, both hands inside the frame, and he’s driving. The bump knocks the defender to the play side of Adeniji which is not perfect, but he still does a fine job driving him. It just so happens that the nose tackle was also able to get across the face of the center, which meant Joe Mixon didn't have a gap to run through. If either of those blocks were able to hold their original position, then this could be a house call. Adeniji does a very good job on this play, he just needs to drive vertically with Cappa on that combination block. The bump created some movement, but it allowed the defender to get to the play side.

Adeniji is not a liability in the run game. He brings athleticism and some surprisingly good combination work. There are some areas that need to be cleaned up, but overall he should be able to keep the ship afloat. As he works with his new running mates, his run blocking should get even better.

As a whole, there is some reason for optimism with Adeniji. He’s not going to be an outright upgrade to Collins, but he showed that he shouldn't be a huge downgrade from what we've seen from Collins this season. 

He’s a better offensive tackle than he is a guard and it showed this past week against the Patriots. The offense was downright lethal with Collins. Even if Adeniji is a small step down, the offense should still be electric. Against the Bills, it will be against an edge rusher that likes to use length and power which is different from anything he faced against New England. This would be a matchup that Collins would do well, so it will be interesting to see if Adeniji can handle it as well.

The Bengals and Bills meet on Monday Night Football at 8:15 p.m. ET. The game airs on ESPN and is available on fuboTV—start your free trial here.

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Mike Santagata
MIKE SANTAGATA

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