Bengals' Amarius Mims quietly heading for elite status

1 week ago 2

Cincinnati Bengals offensive tackle Amarius Mims is one of the breakout players for an offensive line that has quietly been the best of the Joe Burrow era to date.

First-round pick or not, we labeled Mims as a bit of a sleeper draft pick hit. This is, after all, the team that hasn’t been able to draft or develop linemen well since the Andrew Whitworth days.

But right now? Mims has been stellar and available. The availability was a concern after his limited college reps.

The performance? Never really in doubt. And Bengals Ring of Honor member Willie Anderson told Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com that Mims is clearly getting comfortable:

"You can tell watching film, and watching him play, you see he has a different body confidence in himself than his rookie year. You can tell he's been playing with a stance that he's figured out is a good stance for him. He's a big dude. He and Orlando are like two freaking Jonathan Ogdens out there.

And the praise for Mims from Anderson doesn’t stop there.

One could argue it even gets better: "He's got the athletic ability, and he's starting to figure out the nuances of pass blocking. I like his trajectory. The third year is the break-out year. I started figuring it out in the middle of my second year. The third year is that big year. I started to realize, 'I'm pretty good. It's hard to beat me.'"

It’s going to be pretty hard for Bengals fans to not get excited about this analysis from Anderson. They see it with their own eyes, sure, but Anderson knows a thing or two about developing as a right tackle.

Mims is a likely strong performer on the right side no matter what going forward, but it doesn’t hurt that he had a steady veteran like Dalton Risner next to him.

For the Bengals, re-signing Risner would be as much about keeping the unit strong as it is about giving Mims room to keep developing.

The decade-long anchor upside hinted in Mims' draft stock, after all, is starting to show up.

This article originally appeared on Bengals Wire: Bengals' Amarius Mims quietly heading for elite status

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