Brandon LaFell visiting the Bengals

[Brownshoe]

(03-17-2016, 04:23 PM)ochocincos Wrote: Why is there all this talk of whether Brandon LaFell will replace MLJ? I thought the expectation across the board was to bring in a vet and draft a WR early?

Even if LaFell isn't quite to level of MLJ, he's definitely ahead of Sanu. The highly-drafted rookie should also be able to contribute at least a few hundred yards of offense, thus nearly equaling the same combined number of touches and production that MLJ and Sanu brought. Just because MLJ had 849 yards of the combined production and Sanu had 465 total yards doesn't mean that LaFell has to bring 849 and a rookie has to bring 465. If LaFell brought 750 and the rookie brought 564, it'd still balance out. Eifert also missed three games and should hopefully build on the 615/13 line he put up in 2015, likely reducing the amount of touches available for WR2+WR3.

With all that said, LaFell had higher yards in 2014 than MLJ has ever had in a season. People are too focused only on 2015.

LaFell also averages about 100 more yards per year than Jones, and that's even excluding the season where Jones didn't play due to injury AND including almost half of the season that LaFell missed last year due to his injury. Marvin Jones does average 2-3 more TDs a year though (mostly due to that 10 TD year; his 2nd highest TDs in a year is 4). I think LaFell could be just as good as Jones. I don't think he's better, but he would be a good replacement due to him being a lot more resilient to injuries and he has just as much production and Jones.

The thing with this upcoming draft though is that it's not deep what so ever in WR talent. Treadwell / Doctson / Coleman / Fuller are the only ones I would take in the first, and Boyd would be someone I would take in the 2nd. I'm not impressed with any other receiver in that draft class. If we do take a receiver it will be in the 1st or 2nd round. Otherwise it will be at the ass end of the draft like we did last year with Alford.

If we do pick up someone like LaFell in FA I wouldn't be surprised if we pass on WR early this year. I think that we would just do a lot of 2 TE sets with Eifert and Kroft (or Uzomah). If we don't bring in someone from FA I would be pretty surprised if we don't draft a WR early in the draft. I think there are a lot of defensive players in the years draft that would be hard to pass up in the first few rounds.