CINCINNATI — The traits of Amarius Mims are laughable. Zac Taylor couldn’t hide it while trying to explain watching the Bengals’ first-round pick even walk into his office.
“His traits are,” the head coach said, taking a brief pause, “immeasurable — if you have ever seen him walk through a door.”
Technically, they can be measured: 6-7, 345 pounds with a wingspan of 86 ¾ inches, the longest in the draft.
Those are numbers. There’s big and then there’s, “did you just see what he looked like in the doorway?”
***EXCITED NOISES*** Amarius Mims receives THE CALL from Coach.@IEL_LLC | 📺: 2024 Draft on ESPN/ABC/NFLN pic.twitter.com/om2niUxopf
— Cincinnati Bengals (@Bengals) April 26, 2024
Mims brings double-take traits.
“Just wait until he sits up here,” Taylor said of the offensive tackle from Georgia taken with the No. 18 pick Thursday.
This isn’t about numbers that pop off a sheet, this is about carrying 340 pounds unlike anybody you’ll see. He’s full of muscle and built to be nimble, and he plays like a natural in pass protection.
“He looks like he could add weight,” Taylor said, almost confused, “and I don’t know how.”
Mims will duck under the doorway of the private plane at CVG on Friday boasting traits that make offensive line coaches have hot flashes.
“He has the highest ceiling of anyone in this draft,” The Athletic’s NFL analyst Nate Tice said before the draft. “And this is a draft with Marvin Harrison, Caleb Williams, all these guys. It’s that type of ceiling.”
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Also, it’s why this pick came sprinkled with surprise. Bengals player personnel director Duke Tobin has been known as a doubles hitter in drafting. He’s typically leaned into players with higher floors and not as much risk, specifically in the first round.
Make no mistake, this was a swerve from the norm.
“It’s a home-run swing,” Tice said.
Once you get done gawking and imagining the possibilities you are left with a critical question and one of the most important picks of the Joe Burrow era: Will he translate?
He’s played eight games. Eight.
He’s battled injuries, considered a transfer after a freshman year spent watching from the sideline as the gem of Kirby Smart’s draft class. He needs coaching, development and experience, just like any rookie, but there are unknowns when you’ve never even logged half of an NFL season in your competitive football life. He needs to prove he can stay healthy. He needs to prove he can handle the rigors.
He also needs to prove Nick Saban wrong, who didn’t hold back on the ABC draft show.
“This guy’s got all the tools — he’s got great size, he’s got great power. … But it makes you wonder, how did the guy only start eight (games)? Like, in the SEC championship game, he played only the first 15 plays of the game and then he’s out,” Saban said on the broadcast. “Takes himself out. I don’t know what he injured, what he hurt, whatever. But you’ve got to be a little bit more consistent in your performance if you’re going to be a great player and a starter in the National Football League.”
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Talk about wingspan and traits all you like, plenty of offensive linemen have been introduced to the media in Cincinnati draft weekend in recent years with traits and potential praised into the news conference room microphone.
Famously for Bengals fans, not many have panned out as hoped. That’s not Mims’ fault. Nor is the fact he only played eight games. That’s merely the risk Cincinnati willingly took on. The potential of adding an All-Pro right tackle with the 18th pick was worth it.
“We are all of the opinion (the reason) he is here for us to pick at 18 is because of the fact that he only has eight starts,” offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher said. “Had he gotten through, played this whole season the way he played and the tape that we saw, there is a very low chance we are having an opportunity to pick him.”
Scouts worked the University of Georgia, as all do, and witnessed his practices against some of the best defensive linemen in college football. They heard the reports about his development and maturity taking shape as he had his moment stonewalling Ohio State in the College Football Playoff in his first start.
Combine that with a visit that connected what Taylor called a “genuine and pure” love of football with his absurd traits and the Bengals believe he can make good on the projection.
They were focused on making sure the mentality matched the measurables.
“I just remember just sitting at the office with Coach Taylor and he was like, ‘We want O-lineman that are winners,’” Mims said. “That’s all I remember him saying … I just felt the energy.”
They have compiled the perfect combination of players around him to assist. He couldn’t ask for a better spot than to have Orlando Brown and Trent Brown, the two biggest offensive tackles in football, starting ahead of him. They can assist in mentoring how to use his length and size to demoralize edge rushers. They can regale him with stories of winning Super Bowls with Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady.
More importantly, they can buy him time.
Mims not being forced into action immediately delivers a preseason and who knows how many months of practices until his services were even needed. Trent Brown has only played more than 11 games once in the last four years, so there’s a pretty good chance Mims will be called upon. He’ll train at left and right tackle and serve as insurance for a team focused on winning the Super Bowl this year. The last two times they made a run, a backup right tackle struggled and required help on a down-to-down basis.
Mims said he cried at his draft party in Atlanta. A dream come true. No question, he couldn’t have landed in a much better spot considering the one asterisk attached to him.
Dreams to reality @amarius_mims#GoDawgs | #NFLDraft pic.twitter.com/SxIjUyXQCy
— Georgia Football (@GeorgiaFootball) April 26, 2024
A Bengals team living with a revolving door at right tackle for four seasons might have finally found the person to stop it — just by standing in the doorway, it seems.
It could be proven the smartest move of the night if he becomes a 6-7, 345-pound wall of stabilization for Burrow. All these small details during the draft process made the Bengals think it could be.
Indeed, he’s so many things that fit the Bengals perfectly in this moment. He’s also a risk. One they dubbed worth taking and the team will watch play out quite publicly, with the health of the franchise depending on it.
It’s been since Kevin Zeitler in 2012 the Bengals hit a home run with an offensive line pick. Well, you can’t hit a home run without swinging for the fences.
(Photo: Jeffrey Vest / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
