Simple Question What's Your Answer and Reason

[Whatever]

(03-21-2021, 08:18 AM)Forever Spinning Vinyl Wrote: Sewell.

If I was ever given a GM spot this would be my draft theory until I get fired or retire.

Year one
OL 1st pick
DL 2nd pick
Let the position coaches fight over/present their case the 3rd pick on, or scouts provide me with information from the 3rd pick on.

Year two
DL 1st pick
OL 2nd pick
Let the position coaches fight over/present their case the 3rd pick on, or scouts provide me with information from the 3rd pick on.

Repeat process every two years. Possible trade downs would make the 3rd pick a 2nd rounder on most deals so the team wouldn't be talent starved.

If we're speaking philosophically, that approach doesn't work.  

The Bengals have drafted 6 OL in the first this century(Levi Jones, Andre Smith, Kevin Zeitler, Cedric Ogbuehi, Billy Price, and Jonah Williams).  The average for a playoff team this past year in that same span is 3-4.    The only playoff team that drafted 6 OL in the first through that same period was Seattle.  The Patriots are a team often cited as an example and they've only taken 3, half of what we have.

What compounds the issue for the Bengals is they are frankly bad at OL talent evaluation.  If you're drafting a player in the 1st, your hope is that they will be a multi time Pro Bowl type player.  Of those 6 picks, none have been to a Pro Bowl.  Only 2(Jones, Zeitler) were quality starters as rookies, just as many as those that were total busts(Ogbuehi, Price).  1st round picks are a precious resource and we repeatedly spend them on a position group where our best results are solid-good starters, not elite franchise cornerstone type players and we get get nothing out of 2/3 of them as rookies.  

You can make cases for Sewell as a better talent or as a bigger need.  However, taking him due to a romanticized "build through the trenches" draft philosophy that requires you to constantly dump 1st round picks into the OL isn't logical because we've literally done that for the last two decades and it has been proven not to work.