The Cincinnati Bengals continue to prioritize their offensive line to protect QB Joe Burrow, adding yet another Super Bowl-winning piece in RT Trent Brown. He replaces Jonah Williams, who departed in free agency after moving to the right side in 2023. With the addition of Brown, nearly all of Burrow’s starting offensive linemen have championship experience.
Brown won a Super Bowl together with C Ted Karras while with the New England Patriots, the latter with two. Alex Cappa also earned a Super Bowl ring with Tom Brady, only he did so with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. LT Orlando Brown Jr., on his third divisional team, won his ring with Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs.
“We’ll have four of the five guys on the offensive line who won have won Super Bowls”, Karras pointed out, commenting on the signing of his former Patriots teammate for the Bengals’ website. As he pointed out, they all feel the same way: “We need another one”. And the Bengals need their first as an organization, coming close recently with Burrow.
The only starter on the offensive line without championship experience is LG Cordell Volson. A 2022 fourth-round pick, Volson has played all 2,195 snaps over the past two seasons. He gained playoff experience as a rookie when the Bengals reached the conference finals, losing to Brown’s Chiefs. The year before that, Burrow took the Bengals to the doorstep of a Lombardi.
As you likely realized, the Bengals have built their offensive line primarily through free agency. They added Karras and Cappa in 2022, along with La’el Collins, whose injuries caused them to move on. Brown joined the team as a free agent last year as their new left tackle, displacing Williams, a Bengals first-round selection in 2019.
As mentioned, that move kicked Williams to Burrow’s right side, and now Brown takes over that spot. Williams signed a two-year, contract worth up to $30 million with the Arizona Cardinals. The Bengals signed Brown to just a one-year contract, but the terms are not yet public.
A former seventh-round pick, Brown has 93 starts in 100 games played, spending most of his career in New England. He primarily played left tackle there, but for the entirety of his career, right tackle has been his primary position.
Now 30 years old, he is looking for one more ring, or perhaps more, as is most of the rest of that room. They already know what it takes to win a championship—Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes, apparently. Most view Bengals QB Joe Burrow as a Super Bowl-caliber player, however. After all, he nearly won the Super Bowl in 2021 if not for a Matthew Stafford fourth-quarter comeback.
The Bengals missed Burrow for much of last season, limited to only 602 snaps across 10 games. Even in the games in which he played, he did so through injury. He began the season limping his way through a calf strain, and it took him some time to return to form. Later in November, he tore a ligament in his throwing arm, ending his season. While that injury had nothing to do with the offensive line, he now has another Super Bowl winner protecting him to help him win his first.
