Cincy Jungle
The left guard spot is his to lose.
Cincinnati’s new offensive guard Dylan Fairchild is nasty.
He is exactly what the Bengals have been looking for.
“The toughness and the nastiness is all over the tape,” Bengals offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher said recently about the third-round selection out of Georgia. “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.
“It oozes out of him. That’s who he is.”
And that is exactly what he needs to be in order to be a success in the National Football League. Just ask former Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis.
“If you ain’t pissed off for greatness, that just means you’re okay with being mediocre.”
Fairchild has already tasted greatness. He was an undefeated high school wrestler and a member of Georgia’s back-to-back national championship teams, earning Second-Team All-American honors this past season.
But it was his wrestling background that was on display last month when he met with Pitcher and offensive line coach Scott Peters in Athens, Georgia.
Peters, who is a former Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu champion, got to share some quality time together at the Bulldogs’ practice facility.
“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.”
And it looks like there will be plenty more where that came from. Offensive guard has been an area of concern in Cincinnati for some time now. Incumbent left guard Cordell Volson struggled mightily last season, as did right guard Alex Cappa, who was released earlier this year.
“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 started at left guard for the Bulldogs for the past two seasons, although most mock drafts favored his former teammate, right guard Tate Ratledge.
As mean and nasty as Fairchild can be on the wrestling mat and on the football field, it was the mental aspect of his game that tipped the scales in his favor.
“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 (Fairchild) understands what was being asked of him, and he’s going to be able to...
