Jim McNally, the Bengals' Pro Football Hall of Fame offensive line coach and among the first to reach guru status, has to hand it to Scott Peters.
Peters, the Bengals' new O-line coach, made his name in the trenches as a hand expert after playing for McNally 20 years ago with the Giants.
"He will improve the offensive line. He'll teach them updated pass-blocking techniques," McNally said Monday shortly after the Bengals announced the hire. "He knows the running game. To me, he's the best, new updated offensive line coach in the NFL."
Peters, 46, brings a mix of old-school fundamentals from McNally's legendary Cincinnati-based O-line annual clinic and a new-wave background in martial arts that saw him win two Brazilian Ju Jitsu world championships, train UFC champions and serve as a state of Arizona boxing commissioner.
You'll see it when the Bengals go to work in the spring and he unveils his hand-strike system of sets and counters that was praised last year during his one season as the Patriots O-line coach.
"I'm just excited and mostly proud because of the connection I have with McNally from all this time here, and what he's been able to do," Peters says. "To be able to walk in behind that lineage and have a chance to help improve the program."
McNally, 81, who worked as a Bengals consultant up until a few years ago, has an eye for talent. When he was the Giants offensive line coach 15 years after building two Super Bowl offensive lines in Cincinnati with Hall of Famer Anthony Munoz and a raft of late-round picks, McNally told anybody who would listen about the Giants' brilliant young quarterbacks coach.
Sean Payton.
McNally, who received the Hall's Award of Excellence last month, has talked up Peters for years, so his name is no stranger to the Bengals' inner sanctum. Especially after Peters was an assistant offensive line coach to Bill Callahan in Cleveland from 2020-23.
Callahan, another offensive line legend, had been introduced to Peters through McNally. Peters, an oft-injured center-guard who had stints with five NFL teams before retiring after his seventh season in 2008, played all seven of his NFL games with McNally's 2003 Giants.
"One tough Son of a B," McNally says. "I told Bill Callahan about him, and he went and met him and brought him to Washington (as a consultant)."
Peters believes he has a McNally-like quality: A coach who embraces developing lower-round prospects and back-of the roster players.
During Peters' time in Cleveland, practice squad center Hjalte Froholdt moved on to sign a big deal in Arizona, Ethan Pocic has started all 44 of his Browns games the last three seasons after an off-and-on five years in Seattle and in 2023's playoff run fourth tackle Geron Christian held the fort when he came off the bench to start nine games.
They were working in a system that saw the Browns finish no lower than 12th in rushing during the four seasons Peters and Callahan coached the line.
"Development is probably my strength, and getting the most out of these guys is really my goal," Peters says. "Just trying to get these guys to play optimal, because there's talent here to work with.
"Those are the guys I really enjoy training and helping and watching them take the next step. Development is the biggest piece here that I think I bring to the table. With McNally getting later-round draft picks, as long as those guys were smart and tough and they love the game of football, you can do a lot with those types of guys. They can climb."
About seven years ago, Callahan visited the martial arts gym Peters was running in Arizona and was so impressed with him and his Tip of the Spear Academy that teaches reliance on hands and shoulders rather than the head, he brought him on as a hands specialist.
Callahan let Peters keep a hand in martial arts with the Browns in 2023. Once a week Peters helped train Cleveland heavyweight great Stipe Miocic for his UFC title fight with Jon Jones.
"It's a hands league. The defensive line trains with the hands. That's how they win," Peters says. "We've got to be equally, or better than them in that regard. So we do a ton of work with our hands. We want to be able to play using the full length of our arms, be really proficient with our placement, our strikes, and all the fits and, the counters that we would have to do in order to be successful in both run and pass."
Peters says martial arts has sharpened his teaching of line play.
"How do you operate with the utmost anatomical integrity and attack the guy you're going against and just basically dismantle his integrity so you can attack where he's weak, but you're strong?" Peters says. "Things like that. Just the way you look at the body, the training methodologies, the way they drill, there's some influence there, for sure. Just kind of exploiting the nature of your opponent."
Yet Peters spent so much time at McNally's COOL Clinics (Coaching Organization And Offensive Line) in Cincinnati, he's become more than a hands guy.
"He's not only come to these clinics, he's presented," McNally says. "He knows blocking. He then mastered the schemes, the techniques, the other techniques. He's not just a martial arts guy. He knows schemes, protections, the whole gamut that you need to know."
If there's ONE thing Peters took from McNally and Callahan, it's their NFL pragmatism.
"Here's a coach who comes in and gives you the specific," Peters says. "It's frustrating as a player when you know you really want to do the job right, and you just didn't get it done. And then the coach will look at you and just tell you, well, just got to block the guy. He's screaming, but McNally told you how to block the guy. He told you the specifics, and he was very clear.
"And I thought that was great because players want answers. They want information. They want tools, and they want answers. And that was something that was so impressive to me with Coach McNally, when I had a chance to play for him. And Bill is the same exact way. Inspirational too, as a guy that played and who went through frustrations of not knowing or wanting that information, and being able to get those players exactly what they're looking for to help them."
Of course, Peters likes the highly drafted guys, too. Like his new starting tackles, Orlando Brown Jr. on the left and Amarius Mims on the right.
"Exceptional. They have all the traits that you want in tackles, and tackles are the guys that they're the hardest guys to find," Peters says. "There's not a lot of guys walking around Planet Earth that have that physique, that have that ability to be able to move their feet. The length that they have on the edges is an advantage in the size and strength factors, all those things are important.
"And the character that they have is huge. If you can get all of the above, you've got a good chance there. That's half the battle getting good tackles on the edges. So that's an exciting prospect."
Peters also has an appreciation for the Bengals tradition because he's seen it so much on film in the persons of Munoz and Bengals Ring of Honor member Willie Anderson, a pioneer himself of 21st century O-Line play as the architect of low-hand-high-hand pass pro.
"I know Anthony Munoz well. He's a great guy, obviously the best tackle in the history of the game," says Peters, a mix of martial arts and the art of blocking. "I watch a ton of that with McNally and on my own, and also Willie. Another great tackle. Great history there. I'm looking forward to seeing those guys around."
