New Bengals Guard Brings 'Nastiness'
The Cincinnati Bengals addressed their left guard position with the No. 81 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, selecting Georgia Bulldogs guard Dylan Fairchild. Fairchild is 6-foot-5, 318 pounds, but it's his mentality that the coaching staff loves so much.
'The toughness and the nastiness is all over the tape,' offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher recently said of Fairchild. 'And then you go meet the kid, look him in the eye, hear him respond to questions, and hear him talk about what's important to him.
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'It oozes out of him. That's who he is.'
Fairchild was a two-time National Champion at Georgia, but the gridiron isn't the only place he's seen success. Fairchild went undefeated in high school as a wrestler. That background was on display when he met with Pitcher and offensive line coach Scott Peters last month. Peters himself is a former Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu champion and got to get hands-on time with Fairchild.
"We just met and watched the film and went over different types of install, and then Coach Peters and I did a little demonstration where we just basically put hands on each other,' Fairchild said. 'That's where I really felt a connection. I could just feel in my hands and his hands. You could just feel that wrestler mindset, that Jiu-Jitsu mindset kind of connect right there.'
Offensive guard has been an issue for the Bengals over the past few seasons, and with the struggles of Cordell Volson last season, it seems as though Fairchild is likely to own it.
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'Left guard is absolutely his to win,' Pitcher said. 'We're going to demand it out of him early. We're not waiting. He's going to show up, the demands are going to be clear, and we're going to ask him to go do it right now.'
Fairchild doesn't just have the physical tools, the coaching staff believes he has the right mindset to be successful.
'With the mental part of playing the position, you start to dig into a little bit more as you watch the tape, and you probe, and you question, and you poke holes,' said Pitcher. ''Why did you do this? Why was your response that on this specific play?' You try to listen for things that clue you into the fact that this guy understands football.
'He understands what was being asked of him, and he's going to be able to grow in that role. He's a young player. He's going to make mistakes. There are mistakes on his tape, but all of those things are correctable.
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'We're going to work like hell with him. We think we got a really good player.'
Related: Bengals Start Workouts With Surprise Injury
Related: Bengals Trade of Defensive Stud Proposed in $20 Million Move
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