Daniel Jeremiah reveals sleeper for Bengals; talks great depth at offensive line

It is no secret what the Cincinnati Bengals need to do to improve their team this offseason.

The AFC champs have to make serious upgrades to an offensive line that got exposed quite a few times. They will likely attack the position in free agency, but they will also probably pick several linemen from this year's draft as well. NFL draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah recently did a press conference and dropped bits of nuggets for this offensive line class.

Jeremiah currently has the Bengals taking Central Michigan offensive tackle Bernhard Raimann with the 31st overall selection in his most recent mock draft. Raimann is currently his 37th ranked overall player, but that is fairly impressive for a player who picked up the tackle position just a few years ago after being a tight end prior to that. He has been a common name to pair with Cincinnati.

However, many fans are dreaming for Iowa center Tyler Linderbaum to fall to the Bengals. He is currently the 22nd overall player according to Jeremiah. The draft analyst also offers hope that Linderbaum has the potential to fall given he is a center for a wide zone scheme that really has a limited number of landing spots prior to Cincinnati’s pick.

When tasked with naming an offensive lineman that could be the next name up if the prior players are gone, Jeremiah went with a sleeper who should be getting more recognition soon.

Well, there’s going to be — just in terms of my personal list, they would be probably taking somebody outside of that range, but you’re drafting starters, so I don’t want to necessarily say they’re reaches. I’ve kind of gone through some of those guys.

The one name I had going I think right before them, I think I had him going to the Dolphins, we talked about him a little bit earlier, but I’m telling you, the train, the Tyler Smith train is getting ready to take off. I think that probably takes off as we get to the combine, from Tulsa. Again, he’s 6’5”, 332 pounds. He’s somebody I think could play guard if he wanted to and be hell on wheels as a guard but play tackle. That’s one I think that’s really, really intriguing...

It would be really great for the Bengals to easily be able to add a starter to their offensive line in Round 1 without having to reach. It seems like Smith won’t be considered a reach for much longer with the way he is being described here. Even if the Bengals add a few free agents, it never hurts to add someone who fits so well with what the team is doing.

Jeremiah talked about Smith earlier in his press conference as one of his draft crushes as well:

I’ll tell you the guy who’s like my crush right now, I think he’s going to end up going in the first round, but maybe there’s a chance he’s there in the second round, but Tyler Smith from Tulsa. He’s one of the nastiest offensive lineman you’ll see. Just big time explosive. He can bend and recover. He can uproot guys in the run game. He just plays pissed off. Like looking for a comp, I was trying to figure out who a comp was, and somebody on Twitter used it and I’m stealing it from them, so I apologize, but I said Roy Kent from Ted Lasso. So I thought, yeah, that’s a good one. He’s just really angry. But he’s one I think would be interested in the second round.

Offensive line coach Frank Pollack loves his lineman to have a bit of that mean streak. It is something that can really set the tone for the entire offensive line and offense when a guy like that starts paving holes for the running game with pancakes.

It is also very possible though that a better overall player on Cincinnati’s draft board is sitting at pick 31. There could be a dynamic defensive tackle to rush the passer or a cover corner that falls to them. You can never predict who will still be on the board that late in the first round.

The great news is that Jeremiah sees plenty of chances for Cincinnati to pick up potential starters in the middle rounds of this draft.

We know [the Bengals] have the need on the offensive line. They’re going to be able to find upgrades to the offensive line throughout this draft. They’re going to get players in the third, fourth round in this draft that are better than the guys, some of these guys that they trotted out there and started in the Super Bowl. They’re going to have a lot of opportunities to address that position.

Based on this Jeremiah’s analysis, it seems like if the Bengals play their cards right that they could have a pretty big turnaround with their offensive line going into 2022.