I was catching up on some of the NFL preseason action on Sunday night and came across the Bengals vs Lions game from Thursday. Although the Bengals won their first preseason game 16 – 14, the talk post match was on how left tackle Orlando Brown Jr. had not protected their Quarterback Joe Burrow.
As many of you are like me still learning the game, the reason there have been some questions asked and the Head Coach Zac Taylor has had to come out and support his left tackle Orlando Brown is not so obvious.
Preseason rarely produces headlines about one blocker. This position does, because of the exact spot on the field it exists to protect: the quarterback’s blindside.
What is the blindside?
The blindside is the side a quarterback can’t see as he sets up to throw. Most quarterbacks are right-handed, so when they drop back and turn to look downfield, their back faces the left. A defender arriving from that side comes in unseen, and that is when quarterbacks get hurt.
Quick note to avoid a mix-up: a “blindside block” is a separate thing, a move the NFL made illegal in 2019, where a blocker moving back toward his own end of the field hits an opponent with force. Protecting the blindside, which is the left tackle’s job here, is a normal and legal block.
Why this is the left tackle’s job
The left tackle is the lineman on the far left of the offensive line, and guarding that unseen side is his main reason for being on the field. One warning on the word “tackle”, because it trips up anyone coming from the other type of football: here it does two jobs, a position and the act of bringing a ball-carrier down, and this is not done with the feet.
On a passing play the left tackle isn’t tackling anyone. He is blocking, by standing between the quarterback and the fastest, meanest defender the other team has to send round the edge.
A right-handed quarterback will naturally drop back with his back turned to the left. He can see trouble coming from his right. From his left he cannot, and he cannot easily spin away from it either.
If that edge rusher (the defender attacking from the outside) beats the left tackle, the quarterback often has no idea he is there until he is on the floor.
That is a sack, the game’s word for dragging the quarterback down behind the line before he can throw, and it costs the offense yards and, on a bad day, its most important player.
The wall the linemen build around the quarterback has a name too: the pocket. Hold the pocket and the quarterback gets a couple of seconds to work. Let it collapse and everything else on the play falls apart.
Where does the name Blindside come from
If “the blindside” rings a bell, it is probably the 2009 Sandra Bullock film, or the Michael Lewis book behind it. Both are named after this exact position. Lewis’s point was that as the NFL fell for passing from the 1980s onward, keeping the quarterback upright became worth a fortune, and the man protecting his blindside quietly turned into one of the highest-paid players on the roster. A blocker who never touches the ball, paid like a star, because of a side of the field the quarterback cannot see.
What happened to Orlando Brown and the Bengals
Here is the live version. In Cincinnati’s 2026 preseason opener, quarterback Joe Burrow took more hits than his coaches wanted, and left tackle Orlando Brown Jr. was the man beaten on both plays where Burrow got hit. Head coach Zac Taylor watched the tape and backed his player in public, calling Brown “motivated to give us the best version of himself” and pointing to his job protecting Burrow’s blindside.
The detail that gives it an edge: earlier in the summer, Brown had called Cincinnati’s pass protection the best unit in the league. One warm-up game does not undo that, and Taylor plainly is not worried. But it is a tidy illustration of why this position lives under a spotlight the other four linemen mostly escape. When the quarterback gets hit, the eyes go to the blindside first.
Why one block can lose a game
This is the part newcomers struggle to believe. The five offensive linemen never carry the ball, never catch it, never score. They are the least glamorous players out there and, together, among the most important. A defense’s whole plan on a passing down is to break that wall before the quarterback can throw. Break it on the left, against the blindside, and you might not just stop the play. You might end a quarterback’s season.
That is why a left tackle beaten twice registers as news in August, and why teams pay so heavily to make sure it does not happen in October. If you want the full cast of who does what up front, I have laid out every position on the field, and what a quarterback is actually trying to do behind that wall.
One wrinkle: left-handed quarterbacks
The sharp question a beginner asks straight away: what about left-handed quarterbacks? Flip everything. A left-hander drops back with his back to the right, so his blindside is on the right, and it is the right tackle who carries that weight. Left-handers are rare enough that “protect the blindside” and “protect the left tackle’s side” usually mean the same thing, but not always. I am going to pull that thread properly soon, in its own piece.
Is the blindside always on the left?
No. The blindside is the side away from the quarterback’s throwing hand. For a right-handed quarterback that is the left, protected by the left tackle; for a left-handed quarterback it is the right, protected by the right tackle. Most quarterbacks are right-handed, so the left tackle usually gets the job.