- The Bengals are putting themselves in a winning position with elite pass blocking: Although an impressive Bills pick-six turned the tide in the Bengals' loss to the Bills, Cincinnati was otherwise well on its way to a second straight win, largely thanks to clean pockets for Joe Burrow.
- No team has protected its quarterback better since Week 13: The Bengals own an elite 93.1 team PFF pass-blocking grade since Burrow returned from injury, leading the NFL by a wide margin.
- Get PFF+ for 30% off: Use promo code HOLIDAY30 to unlock the PFF Player Prop Tool, Premium Stats, fantasy dashboards, the PFF Mock Draft Simulator, industry-leading fantasy rankings and much more — everything you need to win your season.
Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes
Yes, the Cincinnati Bengals are coming off a crushing 39-34 defeat to the Buffalo Bills in Week 14. And yes, their playoff odds sit at an unsettling 4%. But there have been a lot of positives since Joe Burrow returned from injury, and a 4% chance is still something in this year's ever-fluctuating AFC North.
Bengals fans have been oft-tortured over the years by an offensive line that has rarely kept it together for Burrow. It was most apparent in 2021, when the front allowed more sacks (42) than any other offensive line in the NFL. The team powered through to the Super Bowl, but things unraveled against the Los Angeles Rams. Cincinnati earned a 14.5 PFF pass-blocking grade in the loss — the lowest figure for any offense in a game that season.
Since then, players have moved on, and new faces have taken their place. Yet, the theme remains: Burrow is often on the ground.
The unit allowed the third-most sacks in 2022, the seventh-most in 2023 (Burrow missed seven games) and the eighth-most (tied) in 2024. Cincinnati has searched for answers far and wide, signing Orlando Brown Jr. in 2023 and drafting Amarius Mims in the first round in 2024. While the 2025 season has featured much of the same subpar play, if the past two weeks are any indication, a winning combination of five blockers is on the horizon.
Burrow returned to action on Thanksgiving against the Baltimore Ravens after missing nine games with a Grade 3 turf toe injury, and Cincinnati’s offensive line stepped up. They are the NFL’s highest-graded pass-blocking front over the past two weeks, boasting an elite 93.1 PFF pass-blocking grade — more than 10 points higher than second place.
PFF Pass-Blocking Grades | Weeks 13-14
| Team | PFF Pass-Blocking Grade |
| 1. Cincinnati Bengals | 93.1 |
| 2. Los Angeles Rams | 82.9 |
| 3. Washington Commanders | 82.6 |
| 4. Tampa Bay Buccaneers | 82.4 |
| 5. Baltimore Ravens | 82.3 |
The group has conceded no sacks and all of one quarterback hit over the span, allowing Burrow to work his magic. While it resulted in an emphatic win over the Ravens, Cincinnati wasn’t able to hold down the Bills in Week 14. The Bengals were well on their way to taking down Buffalo before an athletic Christian Benford pick-six turned the game on its head. Still, Burrow has produced the NFL’s fifth-best PFF passing grade (82.6) over the short span.
Eighth-year left tackle Orlando Brown Jr., second-year right tackle Amarius Mims and rookie left guard Dylan Fairchild each earned a career-high PFF pass-blocking grade against the Ravens. Brown put up his second straight 90.0-plus mark against the Bills, followed by solid showings from right guard Dalton Risner (84.3), Fairchild (77.9) and Mims (70.0).
Mims gave up just two hurries across 29 pass-blocking matchups with Bills edge defender Greg Rousseau, who entered the week as the league’s ninth-highest-graded player at the position. Brown kept A.J. Epenesa completely off the stat sheet, limiting him to no pressure on their 32 matchups.
Compared to the first 12 weeks of the season, the Bengals’ offensive line has been in a different stratosphere.
The competition has certainly helped Cincinnati’s front excel with Burrow back. The unit faced a largely nonexistent Ravens pass rush in Week 13, and the Bills were without Joey Bosa in Week 14. Fairchild, a rookie, still had to hold his own against well-respected veteran interior defenders Travis Jones, John Jenkins, Jordan Phillips and DaQuan Jones. He lost just one of his 55 pass-blocking matchups with those four players.
While Cincinnati's run blocking is a different story, Burrow is getting clean pockets from his jelling offensive line. The unit gets another matchup with the Ravens in Week 15, before taking on the Dolphins and Cardinals, both of whom rank in the bottom quartile in PFF pass-rushing grade. If Cincinnati continues to put up points and win those three outings, perhaps their playoff hopes will rest on whether the offensive line can replicate the performance against the Cleveland Browns and the league's highest-graded pass rusher, Myles Garrett.
© 2026 PFF - all rights reserved.