Bengals interviewed 2 other OL coaches before landing Frank Pollack

It didn’t take long for the Cincinnati Bengals to fill their biggest coaching vacancy of the offseason.

The team officially rehired Frank Pollack this past Saturday as their offensive line coach. The news came as a surprise to many as there was no report of Cincinnati interviewing Pollack for the opening this time around.

As it turns out, the Bengals only interviewed two other candidates last week before choosing Pollack. According to Paul Dehner Jr. of The Athletic, Hank Fraley of the Detroit Lions and Phillip Rauscher of the Minnesota Vikings were the other two.

“Pollack was one of three offensive line coaches the Bengals interviewed his week, along with Hank Fraley, who worked with the Lions this season, and Phillip Rauscher, who is still under contract as the assistant offensive line coach with the Vikings.”

There was a report of the Bengals interviewing Fraley, the Lions’ assistant o-line coach, on Friday. Rauscher, the Vikings’ assistant o-line coach, was also interviewed sometime during the week along with Fraley and obviously Pollack.

Out of those three, Pollack has the most experience and the best track record, so the Bengals did land the best candidate overall. It’s still a bit surprising to see Pollack return to the organization when he wasn’t retained after Zac Taylor was set to take over for Marvin Lewis as head coach, but all speculation on that topic can be thrown out the window now that Pollack is back in the fold.