On Wednesday, CincyJungle’s Josh Kirkendall offered a film review of rookie offensive guard Kevin Zeitler’s first half performance from Friday’s preseason game against the Jets. On the same day, ProFootballFocus.com offered its own preseason take on the Bengals first round offensive lineman.

I walked away thinking that the game was moving too quick for him with him often looking unsure of where he was meant to be. On one play he was playing run while everyone else was playing pass and there were a number of times he got to the second level (at the expense of blocking a guy in front of him) and was forced to do a 180 as everything had passed him by. Even when he got someone to block at the second level he rarely impressed, with David Harris shedding him (not something that happens often) and his best play more the result of Josh Mauga taking a horrible angle than anything else.

Perspective.

Both ProFootballFocus and CincyJungle share similar observations, but it’s what is ultimately taken away from those observations that differ. PFF was clearly unimpressed with Zeitler primarily due to his apparent uncertainty on who to block and what he was protecting. While CincyJungle’s film review addressed the mental errors that Zeitler flashed from time to time during the first half of the game, the overall takeaway was that Kevin Zeitler is a rookie playing his first preseason game. Mental errors are to be expected. For the most part Zeitler played well, with all things considered. It wasn’t as if Zeitler was getting steamrolled by the defensive line the entire half. In fact, as Josh's film review will support, Zeitler was never clearly overpowered no matter who he was blocking.

I suppose you can’t please everyone. Regardless of your overall impression of Zeitler, PFF ended with a final remark that every Bengals fan should hope for every Bengals player:

Bengals fans will be hoping for improvement when the regular season rolls around.

So we always have that in common...