Injury to Bengals’ offensive line gives rookie backup a chance he needs to take advantage of during latest training camp practice
He has to step up at a new position to him.
Starting right tackle Amarius Mims is one of a few Cincinnati Bengals players dealing with a minor injury this week. Head coach Zac Taylor said Mims will be back practicing soon, but now’s the time to give him and others managing ailments some rest.
“Some of these guys are just working through some stuff, nothing serious, just things to manage,” Taylor told reporters Thursday morning. “Sometimes we can push the guy through the practice but we’ll pull them off so that we can get better work with them next week and Amarius falls in that category.”
In the interim, Taylor and his staff have shown what the offensive line could look like if Mims were to miss some time, and it’s good news for one of their youngest players.
Rookie o-lineman fills in for Amarius Mims during practice
Cincinnati’s two-deep depth chart at offensive tackle has been Orlando Brown Jr. and fifth-round pick Jalen Rivers at left tackle, and Mims and Devin Cochran at RT. Rivers and Cochran have worked exclusively with the second-string line until Mims’ injury, speculated to be with his hand, first showed itself Wednesday morning.
Cochran naturally first stepped in for Mims Wednesday, but that wasn’t the case Thursday when Mims missed the entire practice. Rivers got the call to rep on the right side instead.
Both Cochran and Rivers filled in at RT Wednesday when Mims went out, but with the former having repped at that spot for the entirety of the offseason, it was a slight surprise to see the latter get the nod.
Early training camp unpredictability? Perhaps.
“I wouldn’t read anything into anything in terms of lineups,” Taylor said. “There’s days where we have a plan on offense or defense of what it’s going to be, and then all of a sudden the guys could be down for that practice, and it totally changes the plan, and now we’re in a whole new plan. So I wouldn’t read anything these first couple weeks into who’s lining up with who.”
But this has greater implications than just the nature of camp wackiness.
The initial 53-man roster may only have room for one backup tackle, so the odds of both Rivers and Cochran making the initial 53-man roster are slim. Rivers may be the guy behind Brown at LT right now, but since he’s essentially a roster lock compared to Cochran, he’d almost certainly need to fill in at both tackle spots in case something happens to either Brown or Mims. This is only amplified if Cody Ford, who’s been the swing tackle in past seasons, is the starting RG.
Giving Rivers RT reps now is crucial, especially since he played his entire college career left of the center.
Rivers may prove woefully unready to play both tackle spots by the time the season arrives, making it necessary to roster two backups instead of just him. If he can handle himself at a new position during the days Mims may need rest, it would go a long way toward erasing doubt at the bottom of the o-line depth chart.
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