The Cincinnati Bengals aren’t ready to go away from rookie guard Michael Jordan just yet.
Jordan, like the rest of the offensive line during the Monday night loss to Pittsburgh, fell on his face as Andy Dalton suffered eight sacks.
But that isn’t going to stop line coach Jim Turner from sticking with Jordan as opposed to Billy Price, per Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com:
“I want to get Billy as much work as I can. At that point in the game, I wanted to get Billy in the game for that reason. Mike had been injured as well, so it was a smart move. And same thing, I wanted to get Andre out of the game (replaced by John Jerry). Because the way I see the world, Andre is our left tackle and that’s where I’m at. He’s our left tackle and that’s the way we are going.”
It’s a rather shocking development considering Jordan was a disaster at left guard, ending up with a silly pass-blocking grade of 15.1 at Pro Football Focus.
But…Price wasn’t much better on limited play once coaches yanked Jordan from the lineup.
This is perhaps more of a bad sign for Price, the first-round product who just can’t break onto the field under a new staff. Jordan was indeed carted off the field recently but the injury turned out to be less serious than it looked, so perhaps his play in Pittsburgh wasn’t a sign of where coaches think he is right now.
While Price remains the first guy off the bench, left guard still belongs to Jordan.
