Bengals Beat: ‘Relentless’ Amarius Mims, Chase Brown Offer Genuine Hope For A New Level Of Offensive Superiority Going Forward

CINCINNATI — With new contracts coming due for Ja’Marr Chase and possibly Tee Higgins, the Bengals know their younger players under long-term contractual control need to step forward and step up.

Chase Brown and Amarius Mims have shown this season there’s good reason to believe that both can meet that challenge.

Brown, a fifth-round pick in 2023, has begun to blossom in the second half of his second NFL season. With the season-ending neck injury to veteran back Zack Moss, the Bengals had no choice but to ask Brown to increase his work load and his productivity. He’s answered the bell in both areas.

Offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher was asked Monday who was the most consistent player after Ja’Marr Chase and Joe Burrow.

“Probably Chase (Brown),” Pitcher said. “The year starts and we’ve got Zack Moss so you have a veteran who has played more football and we are very excited about Chase Brown from the start. The hope was always we could have a one-two punch. Not have too much on any one guy’s plate. Let Zack maybe handle a little more of the protection stuff Chase really hadn’t done a ton of. Then unfortunately we lose Zack and from that point forward all the areas – it wasn’t we didn’t trust Chase without the ball in his hands, we just hadn’t seen it yet and we had seen it from Zack.

“Now, Chase is in a position where he is going to have to do some of that stuff and he has really answered the bell. When you are asking about consistency there is an element of consistency that comes with that when you play without the football at that position. He’s been really good. Other guys that come to mind. A guy like Drew Sample is pretty unheralded, who does all the dirty work and very reliable. I would say Amarius has been very consistent. Especially lately. It’s easy to maybe lose track of Amarius, he goes much of the game unnoticed in a good way.”

Moss was injured in the loss to the Philadelphia Eagles on Oct. 27. Brown set career highs with 27 carries and 120 yards the next week against the Raiders. He nearly surpassed both marks on Sunday in Nashville when he ran 25 times for 97 yards and caught and ran for a touchdown for the first time in his career.

In the six games since Moss went down, Brown has averaged nearly 19 carries a game and 78.8 yards on the ground, rushing for three touchdowns and catching three touchdowns. He’s averaging five catches and 43 yards a game. Brown is averaging 24 touches and nearly 122 yards from scrimmage in six games. In other words, the word load is not wearing him down. It’s only a six-game sample but not insignificant, either.

“I think the guys have done a good job opening up the holes for him,” head coach Zac Taylor said. “He’s doing a good job seeing it. We’re getting him in a pretty good rhythm, trying to get him the ball as many touches as possible. He’s really gotten rhythm as the season’s gone on, gotten a lot more carries. He was the (third) leading rusher in college football. So this is what he showed in his career leading up to us drafting him, is that you can give him 20-something carries. He’s gonna hit some explosive runs for you. He’s gonna be durable. He’s probably catching the ball a lot better than he did in college. We’re giving him more opportunities.”

In addition to being the third-leading rusher per game at Illinois in 2022, he was sixth in the country in yards from scrimmage at 1,883 yards on 355 touches. This is what attracted the Bengals to Brown.

“So, we’re certainly giving him a lot of opportunities there to get more touches, but really pleased with his approach. And, you know, in 25 carries (Sunday), and he’s not tired. I’m (talking with running backs coach) Justin Hill, ‘Are we doing too much? And he’s like, ‘No, he’s in great shape. He looks great the flow of the game.’ There was a sequence there that felt like three and a half hours where the offense wasn’t on the field (in third quarter). So the offense got plenty of break there to where, and a lot of his carries came at the very end. I think we got 11 carries in that last 17-play drive. And so you can look statistically and say, ‘How do you do 25 with one (back)?’ But really, the way the game breaks down, it made a lot of sense to give him that workload.”

One of the players that had the joy of watching the name on the back of Brown’s jersey Sunday was Amarius Mims. As a rookie, he got a slow start when he missed the first two games with a pectoral injury. But ever since, he’s been a staple at right tackle – with a minor exception coming on Oct. 6 against Baltimore when he left with an ankle injury.

“Honestly, just be a relentless player,” Mims told me when asked how he measures success in his rookie NFL season. “With coach (Frank) Pollack, the message has been to be relentless. Be a relentless blocker, a relentless player. Me and coach Pollack talk about it all the time. Just be relentless. Make people hate you and not want to line up against you.”

“You don’t notice him during games,” Taylor told me. “He’s over and he’s playing really good football over there and you don’t notice it. You can feel that during the game. I told him coming off the field against Dallas that he doesn’t understand the wave of rushers he’s had to face this year. It’s tops in the league in terms of who he’s had to go against and he’s done a great job. It doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement over time. He’s just a rookie. He got no training camp. He’s been really consistent and there’s a lot to like there and it hasn’t been too big for him that’s for sure.”

It’s that play against the elite of the pass rushers that has stood out to Taylor from the moment Mims has taken the field. He has handled himself like the first-round pick he is. He has shown he can be a cornerstone of the Bengals offensive line for as long as Joe Burrow is throwing passes.

“It’s the physical conditioning and mental conditioning, to just get yourself ready because every play can be the one that matters the most, especially when you’re playing all the guys – (Myles) Garrett, TJ Watt, and all the guys we face, Micah Parsons, Maxx Crosby, everybody. Every play can be the difference. We throw the ball a lot, so if you let your guard down for one snap and allow got to get around an edge and sack fumble, and they pick it up and go, that can be the difference in the game. That can be the difference in the season. So from a mental standpoint, just locking in on every single play, making sure you’re doing your job, and it’s as much as anything, as the physical part.”

Did Taylor know he was capable of this when he watched him at Georgia in 2023?

“No, it’s impossible to know. I mean, I think our scouts really liked him and what he was about, because they had the best assessment,” Taylor said. “I mean, they got to go to practice. They got to see who he practiced against. We had seven games of footage to go against, which was good stuff, but that’s probably the least amount of information you ever have on a prospect, especially when you’re placing a first round pick on so yes, as coaches, we certainly liked him, but I would tell you our scouts were the ones that stood on the table for him and said, Hey, I know, I know you guys don’t get a chance to see all the stuff we see, but I’m telling you, this guy’s made of the right stuff, and he’s going to be a great pick for us. And so you got to give a lot of credit to Duke and Trey Brown and Mike Potts and those guys that went in there and really did the work on them, and stood on the table for the guy. And we get to reap the benefits of that.”

Pitcher concurred with Taylor’s assessment on the massive right tackle.

“Kind of like we (said) about with Chase, more reps, he may have already played more NFL football than college football,” Pitcher said. “I don’t know what the exact snap count is but just thinking back to watching his college tape. Obviously, there wasn’t a ton of it and that’s why we were able to pick him. I just think he has played more. He’s gotten more comfortable. He is really showing how effective he can be in protection.

“And then things like more than just the one-on-one protection matchups, it’s ‘OK, how am I playing in tandem with my guard. How are we passing off twists? All the different pressure front structures we see on third down and what are the different rules I have to be ready for every week.’ Stuff that is more than pass set, block the guy across from me. I think we are almost all the way through his first NFL season and he has really adapted well to all that stuff.”