Looking ahead to 2017 draft

[SunsetBengal]

(05-15-2016, 02:00 PM)RagnarLothbrok Wrote: I think we are jumping the gun here a little bit on DE replacements for Dunlap and Johnson. Dunlap still has at least 3 or 4 highly productive years left in him. And I mean highly productive. With advancements in the medical field, I think we can expect the new guys coming in to have a longer "shelf life" than those coming in 6-10 years ago. I just think it is not realistic to make Dunlaps eventual replacement the #1 priority in the next draft. Maybe 2 or 3 drafts from now it should be considered, but not immediately right now.

I'm going to have to disagree with you, on DE not being a draft priority heading into '17.  While I fully expect another 4-6 years of good production from Carlos Dunlap, I'm not so sure the same holds true for Michael Johnson.  While he has proven to be a steady starter, with at least average production, it's looking more and more like his 2013 season was an anomaly.  After that we have Clarke and Hunt.  Yes, read that again, Clarke and Hunt, who have done basically, nothing impressive. 

Unless one of those placeholders does something amazing this year, I would fully expect the Bengals to be full-on looking at DE as their top pick in '17.