The Bengals won big in the first round of the NFL Draft on Thursday night.
Acquiring Georgia's huge offensive tackle Amarius Mims with 18 players was really big.th They placed the 6-foot-8, 340-pound junior behind a towering 6-8 bookend already at tackle Orlando Brown Jr. on the left and Trent Brown on the right.
Still, when asked about having Joe Burrow as a teammate, the big man gave off little air as he spoke to the Cincinnati media from a draft night party in Atlanta.
“Just like a little kid, he just revolves around the guy he looks up to, the quarterback,” Mims said. “He was one of those guys that said, 'I want to block for this guy, I want to play with this guy.'
“I was just watching Joe Burrow at LSU and I was like, 'Oh my God, I've always wanted to block for him someday and now I have that opportunity. It's a blessing. I can't wait to go in and talk to him. I thought so” “
The Bengals can now afford to ease Mims after signing 10-year veteran Brown to a one-year deal in free agency last month. Mims played just 803 snaps in his three years with the team, making him generally considered one of the top sleepers in the draft. Georgia.
Mims was a reserve player for the national champions as a freshman, and the following season he started his first two games in college, the national semifinals and the national title game. Last year, an ankle injury limited him to six starts, three of which came in the final regular-season game after returning from surgery.
Bengals head coach Zac Taylor said he believes Mims is more immature than immature.
“He leans toward inexperience. Georgia does a good job developing offensive linemen,” Taylor said. “They have a very good track record of developing players who can come out and play.”
Despite his short resume, the Draft Knicks have been raving about Mims. Bengals Director of Player Personnel Duke Tobin prefers to draft players he feels are surefire doubles rather than flag home runs, but Ourers' scouting service calls Mims a “fence-type prospect.'' It's called “swing”.
“He appears to have been scientifically manufactured in an offensive tackle factory, with a huge frame in all directions and ideal weight distribution from top to bottom,” the service wrote. “It's hard to find bad weight on him. The sudden snap he shows from his flatback stance with a good bend on his inside hand is textbook. The strength of his elite play is already there. … There are some flashes where he moves defenders against their will on every level.”
The NFL's Lance Zierlein basically calls Mims a project, but also says he's a first-rounder with as much upside as his size: It's very rare to see, “he has the gift of recovery to do something'' when it happens. ”
Mims, a 21-year-old from Cochrane, Ga., came out of Bleckley County High School and was touted from the beginning as the nation's No. 3 offensive tackle prospect, No. 7 prospect and Georgia's No. 1 prospect. .
Like Brian Callahan before him, Dan Pitcher's first choice as the Bengals' offensive coordinator is tackle. But unlike the diminutive Jonah Williams in 2019, Mims arrives in the giant mold of the two tackles in front of him and uses his bulk to keep the quarterback clean. He's going to get his feet wet and get shots playing on both sides.
“It's the same reason we like Trent and Orlando: length. Just natural. He has length and plays with tremendous length,” the pitcher said. “He's 340 tall, but he doesn't play like a 340. He moves much better than I expected. He stays in really good position. He's not affected by speed or bulls. It has everything you want to see” its size. ”
“Just wait until you see him here tomorrow answering questions,” Taylor said of Mims' first appearance at Peiko Stadium as a Bengal Friday.
