The Cincinnati Bengals made a big change this offseason, swapping out Jim Turner for the returning Frank Pollack as offensive line coach.
While many stumped for the Bengals to draft a guy like Penei Sewell to fix the offensive line, Cincinnati hopes the simple change along the coaching staff has an even bigger impact.
And it could.
We’ve long slammed the table that Pollack should have never left when Zac Taylor took over in 2018 and equally slammed the table that Jim Turner was a bad hire at the time.
A recent comment by Pollack himself, unintentional or not, sort of lines up with this idea, via Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com:
“We’ve got a lot of good players still developing. I can’t wait to get them out on the grass and teaching guys different techniques that may be they haven’t been exposed to the last two years.”
The Bengals had multiple retirements along the offensive line when the Turner era began and it was clear the majority of the guys weren’t taking major steps in their careers. One of Pollack’s strengths, on the other hand, has been properly evaluating and developing talent. Heck, in 2018, Pollack even brought on new machines to practice with that the team had never used in the past.
So call it a new era again, even if it’s the Bengals admitting a mistake and going back to Pollack. He’ll get his hands on Jonah Williams, not to mention high-upside draft picks like D’Ante Smith. And even Pollack himself sounds like he expects the unit to be better right away.
