The case for Joe Burrow

[CJD]

(01-06-2020, 12:22 AM)Fan_in_Kettering Wrote: ...which leads me to the following: Cincinnati will take Joe Burrow with the first pick.  Not even Mikey Boy will screw this up.  That’s good.  However, in rounds two through seven, do the Front Office and the coaches even have a plan?  Based on what I saw in the 2019 Draft and the 2019 offseason, I say no.  The only plan I see is to draft Joe Burrow and hope for the best — and hope is not a strategy.  I can see Joe Burrow drafted followed by six “reaches,” “stretches,” “guys with potential,” and “future prospects.”

This scenario scares me because Joe Burrow deserves an honest shot to lead the Bengals out of the basement and if he’s surrounded by the same players it won’t happen.  It scares me because we fans deserve a winner.  Here’s what scares me most of all: The stadium lease in Hamilton County expires in 2026.  I fear the Front Office looks at Joe Burrow as the last quarterback they’ll ever have to draft and they’re just kicking the can one more time until retirement and folding the team.

The 2019 NFL draft was bad, but it was mostly because of Sample and Finley.

Pratt was value at the slot we took him and has shown talent in the final ~6 games of the year.
Jordan has also shown the capability to start with a strong finish to the year.

Williams and Hudson were both considered high value picks that were just too good to pass up that late in the draft. They were made a little odd of selections due to the Bernard extension though...

The Wren pick is still kinda...jury out. He was a well regarded prospect but didn't really do much for us. But we need some DT depth with Billings possibly leaving this offseason, so it wasn't a bad position to draft.

And then Davis and Brown were late round picks who didn't make the team.

Honestly, if you make Sample DK Metcalf and Finley a blocking TE (I'm sure there was one available. Maybe even Sample!), the 2019 draft was a pretty good crop, in my opinion.

We'll see how Jonah Williams does next year before we can really judge it, even preliminarily.

I just hope Sample becomes SOMETHING in his NFL career haha.