02-07-2020, 04:28 PM
(02-07-2020, 03:43 PM)leonardfan40 Wrote: Sounds good in theory, but that’s not actually what good organizations do. Take the Ogbuhei draft. We had a very good, playoff team, arguably a couple of pieces away from winning a playoff game and maybe competing for a super bowl. Good organizations sense that and try to improve their teams. The bengals thought they were smarter than everyone else and that they needed to replace one of their best players before he started to decline.Paying attention to players' ages and potential drop off in play is certainly something good organizations do. The context of our exchange was him jumping on a guy (as if he was being ludicrous) for saying DL is a need and should be addressed in the first 4 rounds. I don't think it's a stretch for that guy to say that.
The Steelers would have spent their high picks on players that could have pushed them over the top and turned a weakness into a strength. Then when Whit was actually declining they would have addressed that at the appropriate time. While that position may no longer be a strength, they would have had a few years with a young stud at a position of need and Whit still locking down OT. Instead the bengals decided the rest of the roster didn’t need improvement and we needed to worry about what would happen a few years later when whit declined...then on top of that they bombed the first two picks. Steelers would have turned a weakness into a strength and kept their strength at OT as well. We managed to turn a strength into a weakness and neglected the rest of the team at the same time.
That’s why they never got over the hump. They’re too worried about the future to improve the current team. Steelers used to be known for defense around their first SB with Ben. They didn’t spend all their time trying to keep the defense stacked for 10 years, they started drafting stars on offense so that both were good. Then the defense declined in the mid 2010’s but the offense was so strong it didn’t matter. Now their offense is going down but defense is on the upswing. That’s how you win a championship every 10 years or so. Build the best team you can every year, don’t worry about 3-5 years from now on you’ll suck now and you’ll suck then
At the time of draft that year, I was OK with the Cedric pick, thought the Fischer pick was overkill so we agree to an extent. Whitworth is a significant outlier for maintaining his level of play late into his 30s. For every Whitworth, there are 30+ guys (excluding QB) whose level of play drops steeply after 10 years in the league (if they last that long). It sucks that he left and in hindsight, signing him would have been the better move, but I don't blame the Bengals for trying to find a replacement a year early.
