The Bengals may finally have the answer they spent years chasing at right tackle.
For a long stretch, Cincinnati kept patching that spot with veteran stop-gaps while fans waited for Joe Burrow to get real protection on the edge. Riley Reif, La’El Collins and Trent Brown all came through, but the search looks like it has ended with Amarius Mims.
Mims was pushed into the starting lineup as a rookie far earlier than expected, and he didn’t just survive the assignment - he flashed right away. Since then, he’s kept moving forward. Entering Year 3, he’s being talked about as a player ready to take a major leap in 2026.
That optimism is tied in part to continuity. The entire 2025 starting offensive line is set to return, which is a first in the Burrow era. Mims also publicly backed Dalton Risner and credited him with helping his development last season, and the two are set to anchor the right side of the line again.
That’s why Mims has been singled out as a Bengals breakout candidate for 2026.
“He looks ready to play at an All-Pro level this year. He’s quickly become the anchor of an offensive line that’s far better than previous editions and has continuity next to him at right guard with Dalton Risner.”
Elsewhere around the Bengals conversation, Joe Flacco’s trade to Cincinnati continues to draw attention, with his wife and kids taking center stage in one review of the move.
“You can tell that really hit her,” he continued. “t’s like ‘we’re gonna spend the next four months without you and you’re really not even getting to do what we thought you were gonna do.’”
Joe Burrow also became part of a heated ESPN quarterback survey debate, with Tim Hasselbeck questioning where the Bengals star was placed.
“I think Joe Burrow is way too high,” Hasselbeck said. “He’s been in the league six years; he’s started every game in the regular season just three times.
That’s half. So, to think he’s in this rarefied area inside the top five with guys [who] consistently play at an MVP level that are always seemingly available, that’s really surprising to me… ”
There was also news of a former Bengals player announcing retirement before training camp. As the report noted, “As Bengals fans might remember, he caught a two-point conversion in the AFC Championship from Joe Burrow that helped the franchise advance to the Super Bowl.”
Flacco himself even entertained the idea of a future return.
““I definitely could see a world where it would be a lot of fun to do it,” Flacco said.
The quarterback rankings talk kept rolling, too, because nothing gets people going quite like a list.
On the wider NFL front, Stefon Diggs got a strong free-agent endorsement from a former Commanders quarterback, who pointed to Kansas City as a fit because of the quarterback situation there.
“I do see the fit in Kansas City because it’s a team that’s got an established quarterback that can deal with a big personality”
And a report on Aaron Donald said he wanted to test himself before fully committing, with the team told he wanted to work out in pads and see how it felt.
“He told the team that he wanted to go there, work out, see how he felt, see how he reacted. See everything that went along with being back in pads on the football field and seeing how it made him feel.“
In the end, the note on Donald summed it up: Turns out, he was playing through a lot.
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This time, Cincinnati may have a little more room to manage it. With Joe Flacco and Josh Johnson in the quarterback room, and with the coaching staff still intact and all 11 offensive starters back, the Bengals are in a better position to ease Burrows workload during 2026 camp without losing much continuity on offense. For a team built around its quarterback, that kind of stability could matter as much as anything else. [Read more 🡒]