For the Bengals, the offensive line has spent much of the Joe Burrow era as the part of the roster that keeps you checking your pulse. This time, though, the conversation around that group sounds different.
More settled. More connected.
More like a unit that has already taken some lumps and decided to grow from them.
That’s the feeling Amarius Mims and Dalton Risner brought to an exclusive interview with Bengals radio voice Dan Hoard. Their message was simple enough: the line’s ceiling won’t be reached by talent alone. It gets there by functioning as one.
“Five as one.”
That phrase kept coming up, and for good reason. Cincinnati is bringing back all five starters this season - Orlando Brown Jr., Dylan Fairchild, Ted Karras, Risner and Mims - instead of starting over again in front of Burrow. After years of shuffling bodies and searching for the right mix, continuity suddenly matters as much as any schematic tweak.
The back half of last season offered a glimpse of what that can look like. The Bengals’ line was rough early, but it tightened up as the year went on.
Over the final seven games, Pro Football Focus ranked Cincinnati’s offensive line among the top five in the NFL. PFF also listed both Risner and Mims among the league’s most improved players at their positions in the second half of the season.
The numbers back up the eye test. Risner’s PFF grade jumped from 56.8 over Weeks 1 through 9 to 79.6 from Weeks 10 through 18.
Mims made nearly the same leap, rising from 55.1 to 78.2. His pass protection took a major step forward, too: after giving up 21 pressures and four sacks in the first nine weeks, he allowed just 14 pressures and no sacks over the final eight.
“The last seven or eight games is when it really started to gel,” Mims said. “We weren’t winning as much, but it was obvious we were getting better.”
That improvement, in Mims’ view, wasn’t about the game suddenly becoming easy. It was about learning how to respond when it got messy.
“It’s how you overcome those bad games,” Mims said. “I learned from guys like him [Risner] and Orlando: do not let one bad play affect the whole game.
We’re in this together. O-line is hard.
Five as one. It’s not going to be perfect.
It’s just, how can we make this better?”
That’s the part that stands out with this group. Offensive line play is built on communication and trust, and the Bengals sound like a unit that finally understands both.
One clean rep doesn’t mean much if the next one falls apart because somebody else missed his cue. Mims says the group learned to live with that reality and stay locked in on the next snap.
“We may not get the national credit,” Mims said. “As long as we know we have each other’s back, that’s all that matters.”
Risner saw the same thing unfold.
“We kept our heads on straight the whole year, kept working, kept working for each other,” he said. “We started to build this continuity. With time, we just aged well, started to get better throughout the year.”
His bond with Mims is a big part of that story. The two are at very different stages of their careers - Mims is 23 and heading into his third NFL season, while Risner is 31 and entering his eighth - but the connection has clearly grown beyond simple teammate status.
“He is like a little brother to me. More than a little brother, he is a friend, and I want to see him succeed. I don’t want to let Mims down, I don’t want to let Ted down, I don’t want to let Joe down.”
Risner also made it clear that Mims is more than just a young tackle with upside. He’s plugged in.
He’s prepared. He’s the guy the room leans on for information.
“During the season, we all ask Mims for the scouting report, for the injury report,” Risner said. “He knows all of this. He’s a football guy.”
And Mims has earned that respect by owning his mistakes instead of hiding from them.
“I think Mims is such a pro,” Risner said. “For me, it’s always seeing Mims for the positive things he does.
Let’s go out there and take it one play at a time. During the game, it gets hectic.
The way he is able to see his wrongs, I gained so much respect for him.”
Mims said that kind of honesty is part of becoming the player he wants to be.
“Once you’re vulnerable enough to understand where you need to grow, that’s when you become a good player,” Mims said. “Coach listed what we need to get better at, and we just had to go to work.”
The respect goes both ways. Mims described Risner as “one of the most selfless guys I’ve ever played with,” and said, “It’s always, ‘What can I do, how can I help you?’ That’s what I really like.”
That relationship helped bring Risner back. He joined the Bengals shortly before last season, started 11 games, and then re-signed on a one-year deal before free agency opened this spring. Risner said Mims and Karras were among the players pushing for his return.
“For him to care enough to say something that kind and to want me back, I’ve never had teammates like Ted and Mims that really campaigned for me to come back,” Risner said. “And that’s why I wanted to come back.
“I could have probably made more in free agency somewhere else, but this is where I wanted to be. You don’t have Mims, Ted Karras, OB [Orlando Brown] at other places.”
The Bengals have had no shortage of offense in the Burrow years. The lingering issue has been whether the line could do enough up front to let that talent breathe - enough protection, enough run game, enough stability. For once, Cincinnati doesn’t have to introduce a brand-new cast to one another and hope it clicks.
They already know each other. They’ve been through the rough stretches together.
They’ve improved together. And that, more than anything, is why this group believes there’s more still to come.
“We went through not knowing each other, going through the worst times, then going through the best,” Mims said. “The sky’s the limit for us.
“I’m very excited.”
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