The Cincinnati Bengals need offensive line help, a sentence that’s been echoed for what feels like an eternity.
However, unlike past offensive lines that were full of weak spots, this unit may actually be just one guy away from being the best line this team has seen since 2016. That was a year that saw the Bengals have one of the better guard tandems in football in Clint Boling and Kevin Zeitler.
This year, third-round rookie Dylan Fairchild has had a very promising training camp and preseason, enough to think he really does have a bright future ahead.
However, right guard is a major weakness at the moment and could use, at minimum, another body to compete with journeyman Lucas Patrick and fifth-round rookie Jalen Rivers.
A 2023 fifth-round pick of the Chargers, McFadden has just 164 career regular-season snaps, most of which came at left guard at the end of the 2023 season.
However, McFadden is coming off a strong preseason in which he logged 179 snaps at left guard and earned a 79.9 PFF grade and an 84.4 pass-blocking grade. He also has extensive college experience at both tackle spots and has briefly played at left tackle in the pros, so he’d bring some versatility to the Bengals offensive line while ideally competing for the right guard spot.
And he probably won’t even cost the Bengals a draft pick. Instead, they could send a fringe roster player to Chicago for McFadden. At the most, it would be a conditional draft pick that becomes a seventh-round pick if he plays enough snaps in 2025.