Did The Texans Expose A MAJOR Bengals Offensive Line Problem?

But let's talk about the offensive line a, as a whole.

They struggled mightily against a very elite, uh, defensive line from the Texans.

And, you know, you could say it was kind of expected, but o- it was pretty bad, especially in pass protection.

Burrow was sacked five times, and Houston generated 14 pressures on 36 dropbacks.

So almost half of Burrow's dropbacks, he was getting pressured, so a 38.9% pressure rate.

Burrow got h- hit 10 times, and that was a major step back from week one, where Burrow was relatively clean and really didn't have-- Uh, he only got sacked once and really had a clean pocket for a majority of the time.

And, you know, one of the things that I highlighted, and a lot of people highlighted heading into this game, was with Burrow's back tightness, this was a real big test for the Bengals' offensive line to see if the week one and how they ended 2025 was legit or not.

And now I'm not gonna jump to a conclusion in saying they're back to being horrible again or whatever, but it was a concerning, uh, performance.

Burrow wasn't holding onto the ball for very long.

He, he got the ball at 2.48 seconds, and they still were generating pressure on him frequently.

So this one-- So it wasn't Bur- oh, Burrow's holding the ball too long waiting for plays.

He was getting the ball out fast, and they were still generating pressure.

Um, Orlando Brown, he struggled a lot.

I'll talk about him later.

But Dalton Risner and Ver- and Dylan Fairchild, pretty much anybody not named Marius Mims struggled.

Risner had a 45.7 pass block grade, and Fairchild had a 66, so obviously not great there.

There was a lot of interior leakage, which best part of the b- of the Texans' defensive line is their edge rushers, Antonio Hunter and Will Anderson, and they did their thing.

But the interior also was breaking free, so that was concerning.

Uh, Risner had allowed six pressures and a sack, Fairchild with five pressures and a sack, so the interior was also bad.

They also had four offensive line penalties.

Uh, Orlando Brown had two false starts, um, and then I think Risner and Fairchild, no, Karras and Fairchild, excuse me, both had penalties, so that needs to be cleaned up.

But you have to give credit where credit's due.

They went up against arguably the best defensive edge rushing group in Will Anderson and Danielle Hunter.

And Anderson alone produced five pressures, so he was doing his thing.

He was dominating.