Three Bengals poised for breakout seasons

[*ochocincos*]

(06-19-2024, 12:38 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: His rookie year Bengals felt he was the best option to start at LG. Fast forward to year 3 coming up, Bengals had 2 years to get another starting LG, but did not go after one in the draft or FA. Either we trust FO and coaching staff, or we don't to build our roster. We had 10 picks in 2024, f we felt a better guard was available, why did we not choose early in the draft?

Maybe, just maybe the coaches and FO know more than the fans in this forum.

It isn't like they have not been scrutinized for OL play since Burrow was drafted.

And/Or maybe the coaches and FO know that there might be some growing pains for a player and still want to put them out there because they think it's the best way to develop.

It could be that during Volson's rookie year, they actually expected Carman to cover LG but he got beaten out by Volson. That doesn't necessarily mean Volson was good, just looked better than what other options they had at the time.
And then going into the 2023 season, they might have felt Volson was "ok enough" to instead invest in other areas of need and see how much (further) he would develop in Year 2.
Same thing with Year 3, which is typically a make-or-break year for young players.

At the end of the day, here are the stats for Volson and the guy who manned the position in 2021, Quinton Spain:
2021 Spain - 5 sacks allowed, 23 total pressures allowed on 995 offensive snaps played in the regular season. Another 2 sacks, 7 total pressures allowed in 257 snaps in the postseason.

2022 Volson - 5 sacks, 38 total pressures allowed on 1107 offensive snaps played in the regular season. Another 5 total pressures (0 sacks) allowed in 198 offensive snaps played in the postseason. Still quite a large jump in total pressures allowed compared to Spain the year prior.

2023 Volson - 5 sacks, 38 total pressures allowed on 1087 offensive snaps played in the regular season. No postseason.
While Volson's sacks and total pressures allowed were identical for each of the regular seasons and still higher than Spain's 2021, a look into the game-by-game breakdown last year shows the following...
First 8 games - 3 sacks, 24 total pressures allowed
Last 9 games - 2 sacks, 14 total pressures allowed
He did get better in the 2nd half of last year compared to the first half.

I still feel that Volson was thrust into a starting role too early and wanted a proven veteran starting with Volson as a backup.
However, I am not denying his improvement in the 2nd half of last year and hope that he builds off that for the entirety of this season.