New Cincinnati Bengals defensive tackle Sheldon Rankins arrived with a bang at Paycor Stadium this week after a brief trip to free agency that resulted in him signing with the team.
In fact, Rankins says his first encounter with Bengals head coach Zac Taylor was a hilarious-sounding one.
As Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com tells it, Rankins brought up that whole three-sack game he had against the Bengals last season as his Texans picked up the win:
Rankins says he greeted Bengals head coach Zac Taylor not with, “hello” but with “why the hell (sort of) didn’t you slide to me?”
For some Bengals fans, the performance might’ve been a bit of deja vu in a different jersey. Rankins, after all, went on to reveal that one Geno Atkins inspired the way he plays.
“Geno was part of the inspiration for a lot of my power rushes,” Rankins said, per Hobson. “The way he was able to shock guys and come out clean and then cause a lot of destruction. With him being a shorter guy, I was trying to watch guys with similar body types and movement. Geno, Aaron Donald, Jurrell Casey. I watched those guys always looking to grow my game.”
The Bengals brought on Rankins for this very reason, hoping he can revive the entire line’s pass-rush by wreaking havoc from the middle with and alongside B.J. Hill.
So far, so good for the Rankins era in Cincinnati, it seems.
