As part of the Cincinnati Bengals‘ move to revamp their offensive line, they brought in a player that can play both guard and center in Ted Karras.
Karras is seen as one of the more underrated offensive linemen in the league, having played in both New England and Miami. Many across the league are fans of his game, including one of the greatest coaches of all time.
In a press conference back in November, Patriots head coach Bill Belichick discussed the value and improvement of Karras over the years.
Ted was pretty consistent for us and still is. I think that’s one of the great things about Ted Karras. You get pretty much the same person, the same player, the same level of communication, aggressiveness, play, every single day. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday. Whatever it is we’re doing, you’re going to get Ted’s best, and you’re going to get a consistent level of play. It’s not always perfect, like it isn’t with anyone, but it’s pretty consistent, and he’s pretty dependable. He’s going to give you his absolute best in every situation. He’s been like that for quite a while, probably since his first or second year, once he understood everything that we were doing and was familiar with all the calls and adjustments and all that. It’s been pretty consistent since then.
A few weeks later, Belichick was asked again about Karras and had this to say:
There’s no doubt about that. In an ideal world, both your guards can play center, and then that would really give you the communication because there’s a lot of pressure on the center to handle the communication on the line of scrimmage…Having Ted as a second center in there, that helps in a lot of areas with both recognition and communication. That’s been good for us. We feel good about all the players; Shaq [Mason] and Mike [Onwenu] aren’t centers, but they’re good players, and that’s good too. It’s good to have Trent [Brown] back out there, [Isaiah] Wynn. We’ll see how it goes. Ted’s done a good job inside with the communication, toughness, and just playing the way Ted plays. He plays with good edge, and he’s done a good job for us.
Needless to say, Belichick had high praise for Karras, and when you can get that sort of praise from arguably the greatest coach of all time, that’s huge.
As of this writing, the Bengals plan to start Karras at center after cutting Trey Hopkins to free up cap space.
