Fan-Valuation #2 Linebacker

[BURROWorBUST]

Everybody seemed to rate the DLine as one of the better groups on our defense, and our team as a whole.

I just wanted to say that I agree, but I also want to tip my hat to the Bengals' coaching staff. I think they did a great job in 2019 of doing a studied evaluation of this team's personnel. Obviously, they saw that we couldn't stop the run. So, props to them for going out in free agency and signing DJ Reader to help stop that bleeding.

But the DLine was by far not the biggest reason we couldn't stop the run. When they went to evaluate to talent we had at LB, these are the players they had to look at:

Nick Vigil
Germaine Pratt
Preston Brown
Brady Sheldon
Jordan Evans
LaRoy Reynolds
Hardy Nickerson

After the evaluation, only 3 of those names remain on our roster:

Germaine Pratt
Brady Sheldon
Jordan Evans

Obviously, they judged this group to be a weak link, not only in stopping the run, but also in terms of covering receivers.

Signing Josh Bynes will help with the former, but they had to do something to address the latter. So they went to the draft and came back with not 1, not 2, but 3 LBs who can cover.

So, we're heading into the 2020 season with

Josh Bynes
Germaine Pratt
Logan Wilson
Akeem Davis-Gaither
Markus Bailey
Marcel Spears (UDFA)
Brady Sheldon
Jordan Evans

I struck through Spears, Evans and Sheldon, because I don't think they make the final 53 unless one of the other 5 goes down.

What's your evaluation of this group? I don't remember ever being this fired up about our LBs. I don't know if we'll ever see all 3 rookies on the field at the same time, but we could.

I guess my biggest question concerns Von Bell. But I'll save that for next week.