‘We’re a Great Fit for Him’ — Bengals Banking on Mentors Making Mims a Mountainous Talent

CINCINNATI — No experience, no problem.

The Cincinnati Bengals are thrilled to have the opportunity to give Amarius Mims some on-the-job training after selecting him with the No. 18 pick in the NFL Draft, making the University of Georgia product the fifth offensive tackle selected in the first round.

The Bengals felt Mims’ incredible measurables at 6’7″, 340 pounds, and 36 1/8″ arms, plus his athleticism, would have put him in the upper tier in the draft had it not been for one tiny number: eight, as in his career starts at Georgia.

Cincinnati Bengals Draft Georgia Tackle Amarius Mims in First Round

“We’re all of the opinion that the only reason he’s here for us to pick at 18 is probably because of the fact that he only has eight starts,” offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher said. “And had he played this whole season the way he played in the tape that we saw, there’s a very low chance that we’re even having an opportunity to pick him.”

Zac Taylor put it another way, flipping the standard line of saying the player was a good fit for the team.

“We think we’re a great fit for him,” Taylor said.

Icymi… our line just got BIGGER

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— Cincinnati Bengals (@Bengals) April 26, 2024

Mims arrives in Cincinnati with a long runway toward becoming a starter with Orlando Brown Jr. entrenched as the left tackle and Trent Brown, whom the team signed to a one-year deal last month, at right tackle, which is the position Mims played at Georgia.

“What we’ve done at the tackle position allows us to take Amarius and get him ready to play,” Taylor said. “With acquiring Trent (Brown) and having Orlando (Brown Jr.), two veterans that can help with his processing along as he comes into the NFL.”

Taylor and Pitcher repeatedly leaned into everything they saw on film from Mims as opposed to the amount of film that doesn’t exist given that he didn’t make his first start until the 2022 College Football Playoff semifinal game against Ohio State and missed six games in 2023 with an ankle injury.

“His traits are immeasurable if you’ve ever seen him walk through a door,” Taylor said. “There’s a lot there to work with that we’re really excited about. We’ve had a lot of exposures with him in a lot of different ways and felt really good about his fit with us in the O-line room with our team, what his future can bring for him.”

While the tape might be thin, the total reps the Bengals saw were not. The scouts spent a lot of time on the Georgia campus, watching Mims work in practice against elite defenders who are dotting rosters across the league.

“If you talk to our scouts that go through that school, that’s one thing they would bring up,” Taylor said. “They’ve witnessed that firsthand, the way that they practice and everything that goes into them winning multiple national championships and always competing for national titles. The guy’s a football player, and he knows what to expect when he gets to the NFL.”

And it doesn’t hurt that his two mentors, Brown and Brown, are similarly sized at 6’8″.

“It’s coincidence. We didn’t set out to do this,” Taylor said with a wry smile. “But the way it’s played out makes us look brilliant. But, yeah, that is a good thing to have. Those guys have similar measurables and have gone through a lot of seasons and have won Super Bowls, both of them.”

Pitcher agreed, saying the projection is so overwhelming that the lack of participation is less of a concern.

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“The same reason we’ve talked about the reason we like Trent and Orlando is the length,” he said. “(Mims) has length, and he plays with tremendous length. He’s 340, but he doesn’t look like he’s 340, so he moves a lot better than what you’d expect a player of that weight to move.

“He stays in really good position. He’s seemingly unaffected by speed and bull (rushes). He plays under control. He’s comfortable. It’s all the things you want to see out of a guy that size to project to be a high-end pass protector in the NFL.”

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