Grade The Draft

[3wt]

(05-08-2023, 06:28 PM)ochocincos Wrote: It comes down to need, I feel.
The most controversial picks were Murphy and Battle, which some (many?) fans felt weren't as big of needs compared to the likes of TE and DT.

Bengals have Hendrickson, Hubbard, and Ossai all under contract over the next two years. However, Reader and Tupou are set to hit FA after this season and the Bengals aren't getting as much pressure inside, so it seemed to make sense to get an interior guy over an edge.
I think people are more in favor of Murphy over Battle though because the Bengals could play Murphy or one of the other DEs inside to get pressure from all over.

Battle is probably the biggest head scratcher, especially knowing Darnell Washington was there and they chose to instead trade back just for a 6th round comp. And the Bengals signed Nick Scott as the starter for SS, which some thought was a good value signing.
Had Bengals selected Darnell Washington instead of Battle in 3rd round and not traded back to get that extra 6th rounder, I would almost assuredly say more fans on this board would have voted an A.
A punter could have been selected with the 7th rounder instead of another CB, or even picked one up as UDFA, which most punters are.

This is kind of how I see it.  I hear that the TE is not really our most used position and that we had Irv Smith and  Drew Sample as our two projected starters that would perform in the context of an 11 man personnel based offense.   In other words our bread and butter is wide receivers.

And I also understand that Washington had issues - primarily with his knees and some rawness in his route running.

1) I think of Gronk.   He had major back issues before being drafted and he had a relatively long career.  And Pittsburgh obviously felt like the third round was a safe enought place to take him
2) I think of the limitations of our offense - particularly against defenses like Baltimore's, where we just did not seem to have the ability to grind it down the field.   A guy like Washington is such a devastating blocker and he makes really tough contested catches.  He is a weapon in the running game, third down and end zone packages.   Combined with our other skill players it would have made us very difficult to stop and would have helped us to control the clock to our advantage.

Just feels like it gives our offense a dimension it has not had and makes us even harder to defend.

I really like all our picks, but the Washington pick would have been too hard for me to pass up.