***Official Bengals Free Agency Thread***

[SErebel11]

Cesar Ruiz was last season's top IOL prospect and drafted in round 1 by the Saints. He was guard #64 last season according to pff and graded out worse than Michael Jordan. Jonah Jackson was the next pure guard taken in the 3rd round and he was guard #55. I am not saying that either player won't eventually develop into a solid player but it takes time. Plug and play IOL is just tough. The game is much faster than college and will seem even faster if the player opted out last season. Defensive schemes run games up front particularly on passing downs. Defenses have inside rushers dedicated to just getting after the qb. Assuming some 21 year old rookie is going to be a plug and play without a bunch of bad reps against experienced, athletic players is fools gold. Complicate that with adding 2 new rookie starters and potentially Price and/or Burrow (both really inexperienced) having to call the protections on every play. The guard position should have been dealt with in free agency and it wasn't. Dumpster diving at this point is not going to be productive either. I am not sure what the answer is at this point but I do not see a clear path to protecting Burrow at this point.