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Bengals' Offensive Line Breakdown: Analyzing Their Performance in Win Over Vikings

The Bengals' offensive line has helped Cincinnati win 3-straight games.

Parker Blake

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The Bengals are making a playoff push and have overcome injuries to some of their most important players. Their latest win came in overtime against the Minnesota Vikings.

The Bengals' offensive line is still plugging away. Four of the five lineman ended up with grades in the 80s and they received an overall group grade of 78.89—their third highest mark of the season. 

They also put together another top five performance, as a group, in pass protection.

They did it against the 11th best defense in the league (per PFF). The Bengals offensive line also graded out with a top 10 group grade for run blocking against the eighth best run defense. 

Week 15: Struggles

The biggest weakness of the group this week was Ted Karras. However, the Vikings' defense prioritizes making opponents' centers "wrong." That showed with Karras being the only member of the unit to not record a top five overall grade as an individual. His Week 15 grade ended up as a bottom five grade for him on the season. 

I mentioned Minnesota's top rated run defense earlier and Karras had his biggest struggles in that area. He recorded the group's second worst run blocking grade (a 5.00 grade) this week. That grade is his second worst to his run blocking grade of -7.89 in Week 11.

Overall, it was a solid week for the Bengals' offensive line. While Karras might have had a rough outing against a top NFL defense, he's still the second-highest graded offensive lineman (per my grading system) on the team and the top graded pass protector.

Week 15: Standouts

Orlando Brown Jr. is on a tear lately. He has now posted four consecutive games with an 80+ overall grade. His overall and pass protection grades were both top five performances for him on the season, while he is steadily rising up the ranks within the group as a run blocker. 

It is great to see him settling in and hitting his stride late in the season. I had a lot of concerns with how he was performing early on, but most of those have washed away over the last few games.

The top player of the week was Cordell Volson. He put together his second best performance of the season (his best performance coming in Week 12). He may struggle with consistency, but he's been the second-best player of the group in games 9 through 12 and is averaging a grade in the high 70s over the last few weeks. 

Volson was a big question mark for a lot of fans coming into his second season as a pro. The game seems to finally be slowing down for him and he could still improve his technique. He is on a positive trajectory and I hope to see him in stripes for many years moving forward. 

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Parker Blake
PARKER BLAKE

Parker Blake is a high school offensive line coach and run game coordinator from Salt Lake City, Utah. Though he lives on the other side of the country, Parker has been a lifelong Bengals fan. Parker has turned his passion for the Bengals and the offensive line into a hobby and finds himself analyzing the team's film throughout the season. When his head isn't buried into O-Line film, Parker enjoys binging new shows every week with his wife or finding new hobbies to enjoy with his friends.

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