Tag: Mims

Backup tackle Devin Cochran has seen all but one of his first 151 NFL snaps come in the last three weeks as he’s come off the bench to help keep the Bengals unscathed in the playoff chase.

With Taylor basically calling rookie right tackle Amarius Mims (ankle/hand) a game-time decision after he didn’t practice Thursday, we could see Cochran again.

Either way it works out, what a three weeks it’s been for him.

He found out he was making his first start in Tennessee about 90 minutes before the Dec. 15 game when Cody Ford got ill and couldn’t back up left tackle Orlando Brown Jr. The next week against Cleveland, Cochran played 22 snaps as Mims dealt with those ankle and hand issues and last Saturday night he played the final 60 snaps after Mims took the first 30.

And, oh yeah, he missed Tuesday’s walkthrough when his first child, Ezekiel “Zeke,” Cochran, was born in the middle of the night.

Following it all has been offensive line guru Jim McNally, the Bengals’ long-time assistant coach on their first two Super Bowl teams and later a consultant to offensive line coach Frank Pollack.

It was when he was a consultant a few years ago during the undrafted Cochran’s rookie year that McNally bumped into him in the lobby of the AC Hotel at The Banks.

“He gave me a compliment of how I looked in training camp. I was like, ‘Really?” Cochran said this week. “From that point on. The next offseason I was looking for some trips I could make to find out different things like I do every year. I reached out and he was excited to help.”

Cochran went to the 81-year-old McNally’s hometown of Buffalo, N.Y., for a couple of days and got the full Mac treatment, which is intense teaching all the time.

“Dude, he’s a maniac. You ever see him do pullups?” Cochran asked. “He’s big on fast feet, fast hands, proactive hands. Taking the fight to the defender. Like Frank,” Cochran said. “Eliminating time and space.”

Cochran, a Vanderbilt undergrad and Georgia Tech grad student, is used to homework. He consumes it all from Pollack and assistant O-line coach Derek Frazier. And if he can do or get extra, he does. McNally has also been sending along critiques. There may be a 60-year gap there, but football closes it fast.

“He’s been happy and that’s been awesome,” said Cochran, who knows his own game. “I think (he likes) the mindset. He’s an old-school guy. He likes that brawling, brutal type of thing.”