Brandon Thompson

[*ochocincos*]

(08-22-2017, 12:32 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: It is always a fan's choice to abandon the team for any reason. But demands from fans will fall on deaf ears until they have no fan base. Right now, they do still have an acceptable fan base. The idea every player needs to be top 15 in their position for us to be successful is far reaching to me. I also don't buy we are in a small window. QB's play to they are 40 today. AJ can easily play 5 more years, but even if he does not, most teams with elite receivers never seem to win it all. The best WR on the NFL in my opinion is A. Brown and while the Steelers are highly competitive yearly, they have not been Super Bowl contenders each year. 

the 2017 draft picks, the 2018 draft picks and so on are our future as this team chooses to build primarily through the draft. Our OL is a major worry of us all right now, that  is the bad news. The good news is these guys are extremely young and just maybe they do develop into a very good unit over time. I look at our defense the past couple of years and guys have not stepped up in a big way to help Atkins, Dunlap and Burfict thus we are not an elite defense. An elite defense can win championships still with an average offense. So, we need to either be very good on both offense and defense or elite on one of them and then average to good with the other to start winning playoff games and be a true Super Bowl contender.

Agreed. For me though (and maybe this is my flaw), I believe a player has fully grown after their third year. I don't see many players suddenly improving a lot in their fourth year or later. It's why I've been harder on Bodine than most. Bodine has had three years of full season reps and now into his fourth offseason and he's still bottom tier. I think he's capped out in terms of his potential.

I agree with you that this team's philosophy (at least in the Dalton era) has been to try to build through the draft vs FA. However, there have been quite a few whiffs that have derailed the seasons so far. IMO if the team really put that much stake into the draft, they would invest into more (and arguably some better?) scouting and coaching. This FO and these coaches seem to have had a "type" of player they are always going after, and they've seemed too stubborn to change that philosophy for years even when there's been multiple instances to prove that philosophy is not working and in some cases hasn't worked for quite some time.

In recent memory, here have been the "types" of players the Bengals have pursued:
- Big, long power 4-3 base DEs
- Athletic OL
- Big, somewhat slow LBs that are predominantly run stuffers but struggle in coverage
- DBs that have some experience defending the run rather than ball hawks

EDIT - At least in regards to the DEs and LBs, this team seems to have finally taken a risk and done what many of us fans have asked for, and that's attempting to add some speed rushers and faster LBs that are better in coverage. It's a bit too early to tell, but indications so far are that we fans barking for years about changing things up in those areas might actually have been right all along.

Listen, I know it's not realistic for every player to be a top 15 player. But that doesn't mean the team shouldn't strive to achieve it. The real issue is that this team seems to accept certain players/positions being a lower tier starter year after year without making any concerted effort to challenge said player to either vastly improve or risk losing his starting spot.

Now, some people (at least on these forums) seem to buy into the thinking that the Bengals staff knows their players better than we ever could because they have (much more) experience in football and are employed by the team whereas we are essentially "armchair quarterbacks". However, I believe that just because someone has more experience in a field or has worked for a certain company doesn't necessarily make them better than someone who hasn't. I very much believe some of our fellow board members would add value to the Bengals or whichever team that would employ them.