The offensive heading into 2021

[Whatever]

(04-04-2021, 10:58 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: They don't necessarily need to sweep the first 3 rounds to adequately improve the OL.  Taking Sewell this year, and playing him at Guard for the season, while Reiff plays out his contract would allow a bit of flex in the immediate need to also improve at Guard.  I am more and more falling in love with the idea of Dickerson in the 2nd.  He's that dominate sort of leader that would ensure that everyone around them knew their assignments prior to the snap.

By going OL back to back in 1 and 2, you're pretty much forced into looking at Pass Rusher and WR in 3 and 4, or making a trade before your guy comes off the board.  That type of game is a bit ballsy by Bengals standards, but so has free agent activity in the past two offseasons.  Who knows, they may surprise us.

We've had articles posted from former NFL players that it isn't so simple to just have guys change sides and positions, though.  Everyone likes to look at the success we had playing Whit at G, but don't look at the failures of Andre Smith and Fred Johnson at G.  It's easy for us to say that we should plug Sewell in at G and it will be an improvement, but none of us has had the opportunity to work with him closely enough to make the determination as to whether he can play G or not. If he can, that's great, but people need to realize there's a big chance that he can't.

The other reality is that we need a starting X/Z WR and we only have 4 non-PS WR's on the roster.  Your chances of finding an immediate starter there are extremely thin in rounds 3+.  As much as we should try to improve our OL, this offense is completely dead in the water if Boyd or Higgins goes down.  

We are basically WR and OL in 1 and 2.  Whichever we don't get in 1, we have to get in 2.  We pretty much have to take a 2nd WR for a depth chart fill, though that can be a Day 3 pick.  It would be smart to get a T to groom due to the depth of the class relatively early, as well.