It's time to go Wooly Mammoth hunting in Cincinnati. This week's Meat-Eater Matchup features a tremendous pit-fighter who lines up in the trenches and always seems to command double-teams. And even when he's double-teamed, this ginormous human is able to hold the point and has enough ham hock power in his keister to drive a linemen straight back into the lap of the quarterback.
His name is D.J. Reader. He stands 6-foot-3 and checks in at a huge 335 pounds, a weight that, quite frankly, must have been recorded before he had breakfast.
Reader is really just one of three other pile-driving, trench-fighting pachyderms (B.J. Hill, Josh Tupou and Jay Tufele are the others) that Cincinnati rolls out, who can clog the middle of the field like the Fort Pitt Tunnels in rush hour. They are huge, strong and persistent.
Reader lines up on the center, moving from inside eye on either guard to straight up nose tackle. There's not a lot of area for him to cover, but what he does so well is take on double-teams. And watch out when he gets mano a mano. He's a phone booth fighter and close quarter grappler, demonstrating good balance and quickness for one so massive.
Using a low pad level with tremendous push power from his at least TWO AXE-HANDLE WIDE ACROSS THE BACKSIDE (how we always measured nose tackles back in the day) power pack, Reader is tremendously disruptive when he's wreaking havoc in the middle of the trenches.
You won't find impressive stats about his play. They wouldn't even begin to tell the story of what he does in the middle of the trenches. His job description is to be a space-eater that allows others to make the big plays and eat up the glory. But when you watch Reader in action and see the how he neutralizes double-teams and other big meat eaters, you realize he is central to the run-stopping efforts of the Bengals defense. And if he gets a push on an opposing lineman in a pass rush, he can rumble, bumble and stumble his way into a sack.
No, there's nothing pretty about Reader. He's a blue-collar run stuffing NT with impressive power that is on display whenever you turn on game film. The Steelers recently resurgent run game has to account for Reader on every snap if they hope to run the ball with any measure of success on Sunday.
