The Bengals guard spots seem to be working themselves out in OTAs

AtoZ Sports

John Sheeran discusses the Cincinnati Bengals battles across the offensive line.

Transcript

00:00Two position battles have officially begun for the Bengals and one of the guys competing for a job

00:03ended up taking a pay cut in order to stay in the competition and in this video I'll explain

00:08why he's now in an all or nothing scenario. Hi again Bengals fans, John Sheeran of A to Z

00:16Sports Cincinnati here and we've got a couple updates pertaining the guard spot for the Bengals

00:20offense. As OTAs began earlier this week, which means it was the first time that we saw the 11

00:24projected starters for the Bengals offense take on, well, air, it was Dylan Fairchild at left

00:29guard and Lucas Patrick at right guard running with the ones. Now I don't expect Fairchild and

00:34Patrick to only take reps with the starters, especially during this early part of OTAs, but

00:39it was notable for the fact that both of them were out there together for the first time.

00:43It signals to us that if the Bengals were to play a game this Sunday, it would probably be Fairchild

00:48and Patrick starting along with Orlando Brown Jr., Ted Karras and Marcus Mims, left tackle center,

00:53right tackle respectively. But these two spots contain the most notable position battles on

00:57this entire roster. Yeah, there's still uncertainty at cornerback, there's uncertainty at long snapper,

01:02but obviously the offensive line in front of Joe Burrow is so critical and figuring out which two

01:06guys are going to be bookending Ted Karras at center, that's got to be very important. And we

01:10kind of foresaw this with Fairchild because minutes after he was drafted, it was offensive coordinator

01:14Dan Pitcher who said, yeah, left guard is absolutely his job to win. And I would agree because

01:18compared to the other options, Fairchild gives you a lot of athletic upside. He gives you a lot of

01:22physical upside. He's only 21 years old and he should get better the more reps that he gets to go

01:27And as with Patrick, he brings a lot of experience. He's been in the league since 2016, which matches

01:31Ted Karras' experience, but he might be the most athletic interior offensive lineman on this entire

01:36offensive line, despite his age. When it comes to Fairchild, I expect him to be the front runner

01:41for that left guard job. I don't expect it to be handed to him, but I do expect him to take the

01:45majority of the snaps of that position, which should leave right guard to be pretty much an open

01:49competition. Like I wouldn't be surprised by the time that this video is posted, we've seen Cody Ford

01:53taking starter reps at right guard. I think he was taking reps there in the early part of voluntary

01:57workouts as well. And then you have Cordell Volson, who's in a bit of an interesting situation. He was

02:01in the news recently this week because he took a pay cut of about a million dollars less than when

02:05he was originally scheduled to make. And when that news was first reported, it seemed like the Bengals

02:09wanted him to take a pay cut because they didn't expect him to be a starter, but they still wanted to

02:12keep him on the team in some capacity. But the reworked deal that Volson ended up signing is a bit more

02:17interesting than that because they gave him some likely to be earned incentives. And what that means

02:21is that the Bengals expect these incentives. I think it was like 375,000. They expect those

02:26incentives to be earned so much to the point that it's already counting against the salary cap.

02:30So there are incentives in Cordell Volson's one-year contract now that if he just does what he did last

02:35year, he would get that extra money. And that's signaled to me that there's still a really good

02:39chance that Cordell Volson leaves training camp as the starting right guard. But if he doesn't win

02:43that battle with Patrick and Ford, and he's still making about two and a half million dollars,

02:47and the Bengals are already putting up, I think, three million dollars against the cap to have him on the

02:50team, I don't know if he would stick around as a reserve. After reworking his deal, the Bengals are

02:54saving about $500,000 in salary cap space, which in the grand scheme of things of a $280 million

02:59salary cap, it's essentially pennies. And if they were to cut him, they would still save two and a

03:03half million dollars. So I do think there's a good chance that if Volson doesn't reclaim his starting

03:07gig, he may be out of a job. But as of right now, it's still very early days, and it's not out of the

03:11question that he can beat both Patrick and Ford in a true battle come training camp. But it is still

03:16notable that Patrick, who was the only free agent acquisition from outside of the team this offseason,

03:20that he's getting the nod over guys like Ford and Volson right now. So that's where things stand

03:24at both guard spots. There's still a ton of work for these guys to do. There's a lot of things that

03:28they need to prove in order to be better than the tandem that was there last year. The battles may

03:32have commenced, but the war to solidify this offensive line as a whole is far from over.

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