Team Needs for Next Season

[*SHRacerX*]

(11-22-2016, 02:06 PM)Millhouse Wrote: Good and valid points, but yet for a team that relies on the draft, they have whiffed on last year's top 2 picks, and a 3rd rounder to boot. Year before they whiffed on Dennard in the first round. Dont know yet on WJ3, but if he ends up like a Dennard, then that is 3 straight years of muffing up the top picks in the draft. 

Yeah for quite a few teams that know how to play free agency these would have been good drafts, taking chances on players like Hunt and Ogbebooti who was already on IR. But for a team like the Bengals though, they have not done a good enough job. 

Outside of Eifert, name me one player in the last 5 drafts that is an actual difference maker? Im not talkin about an average starter or rotation guy, but someone that is a top tier sort of player. Burfict was undrafted but they signed him asap after draft was over. Only other one I might consider is Hill, but that is heavily debatable because he needs good blocking to excel. Also maybe Marvin Jones but he is off to greener pastures.  They simply havent  drafted enough top-tier difference makers that they need to.

That said, I do agree on coaching, and not using players like Rex or Gio for that matter in more optimal situations. 

A lot of people would have given up on Whit after his rookie season, and he has had a borderline Hall of Fame career.  Will Fisher and Ced O. reach that level?  I doubt it.  Do I give up on them?  Hell, no.

There aren't a lot of Pro Bowl players that have been drafted in the past five years, I will give you that.  However, they have drafted a lot of starters that, until this year, were in unison one of the best and deepest rosters in the NFL.  We can easily lose sight of how a team can fall apart grasping at straws (FAs) to desperately plug holes in their roster, and typically way overpaying.  By not having any one player that commands a ridiculous $20 million per year, they are able to keep a lot of the "nuts and bolts" pieces of the machine that cost maybe a few million per year.  

I would give anything to see a young version of Sam Wyche take over this team.  I believe the talent is there.