03-19-2017, 02:20 PM
I'm conflicted. Part of me wants to be positive for the following reasons:
1. The defense is still pretty stout.
2. Minter and Andre Smith were decent FA additions.
3. Billings and WJ3 are healthy, which is almost like having a couple extra good picks.
4. Eifert (knock on wood) is healthy, which he wasn't at this point last year.
5. 11 draft picks, including 9th and 41st.
6. Dalton and Green.
7. I don't think the line can get much worse than last year, regardless of who we lost.
But I also feel like the Bengals deserve to be ripped for...
1. Drafting bad linemen like Ogbuehi, Bodine and to a lesser extent Fisher.
2. Sticking with Marvin and Paul Alexander no matter how bad they fail.
3. Making an offer to Whit (which seems to admit lack of confidence in Ogbuehi), then making Ogbuehi the backup plan for losing Whit.
The o-line has just been a complete disaster and it doesn't feel like there's any urgency to seriously fix it. Will it be as bad as last year? Maybe, but probably not. They shouldn't be happy with slightly better than awful, though. They should want to have one of the better lines in the league. Not just in pass pro, but also in run blocking - which should seemingly be more important to a team that is clearly run first (top 8 in rush attempts in the last 3 years).
1. The defense is still pretty stout.
2. Minter and Andre Smith were decent FA additions.
3. Billings and WJ3 are healthy, which is almost like having a couple extra good picks.
4. Eifert (knock on wood) is healthy, which he wasn't at this point last year.
5. 11 draft picks, including 9th and 41st.
6. Dalton and Green.
7. I don't think the line can get much worse than last year, regardless of who we lost.
But I also feel like the Bengals deserve to be ripped for...
1. Drafting bad linemen like Ogbuehi, Bodine and to a lesser extent Fisher.
2. Sticking with Marvin and Paul Alexander no matter how bad they fail.
3. Making an offer to Whit (which seems to admit lack of confidence in Ogbuehi), then making Ogbuehi the backup plan for losing Whit.
The o-line has just been a complete disaster and it doesn't feel like there's any urgency to seriously fix it. Will it be as bad as last year? Maybe, but probably not. They shouldn't be happy with slightly better than awful, though. They should want to have one of the better lines in the league. Not just in pass pro, but also in run blocking - which should seemingly be more important to a team that is clearly run first (top 8 in rush attempts in the last 3 years).
The training, nutrition, medicine, fitness, playbooks and rules evolve. The athlete does not.
