Gruden, Newton & a nixed trade - How Andy became a Bengal

[jowczarski]

First off – thanks for reading and sharing around. I really appreciate it!

Here we go:


@ShakenBlake
… this story just confirms that Mike Brown is still a knucklehead. Marv and Jay had Mike "convinced" to trade up for Dalton, yet he changes his mind on draft day cuz "trades affect the rest of the draft"? Obviously he's correct there, but if you have a QB that the coaches feel is the future of the franchise, you don't worry about a couple picks in the later rounds.

@Au165 …it worked. That pick to move up could have been Clint Boling.

@BengalDude …but did they attempt to trade during the draft?

@OrlandoBengal … there is no comparison in the value of a franchise quarterback versus a third or fourth round pick

These are all kind of interconnected, so I think I can get to it all here:

No one would say where they agreed to move to – but considering Gruden’s fears it either would have been to get ahead of Seattle, which would have at least been to No. 24 or at the very least moving ahead of New England into that No. 32 spot with Green Bay.

So if that’s the case, you’re talking about giving up quite a few picks to do that to get back into the first round. Now say what you want about the rest of that draft, but you’re talking about really decimating the picks a 4-12 team needed to rebuild.

Marvin, Jay and Mike said they agreed to trade up on Wednesday before the draft but then Mike changed his mind. They didn’t say an agreement was in place with a team though because it never got to that point once the draft started later that day.

Now, you’re right about the franchise QB. But here’s the thing: no one thought Dalton was “the franchise” at that point. If anyone did he would’ve been gone after Newton in that run of guys like Ponder/Locker/Gabbert. The quote didn’t make my big profile on Andy was Mike saying he wasn’t sure when he figured out Andy was indeed, their franchise QB – and actually that’s part of the story in that no one was really sure on Andy in that regard until the last couple years. Jay even told me he would have been OK with Kaepernick or Mallett if came to it but Dalton was really his guy and the guy he would stand on the table for to run his offense.



@Bengalholic
@CageTheBengal

Re: the background on “how” if you will:

For this particular story, a couple of things came into play. One, the 2016 draft was leading to a lot of five-year retrospectives around beat guys around the league on the likes of Newton, Von Miller, Patrick Peterson, Julio Jones, JJ Watt…Especially since Newton faced off against Miller in the Super Bowl. So at the owners meetings, in which all the head coaches are present, there were a lot of retrospectives being done. So, the coaches were in that mindset. And, being that it was my first owners meeting, Marvin was in a good mood and willing to talk about such things. I’ve found that it depends with him and I think the climate, the “what if” nature of Newton but the knowledge that the Green-Dalton combo has worked out pretty well had loosen him up a bit.

And of course, Gruden is Gruden. He loves Andy.

The second part of it was the bigger Dalton story I did. Usually the principal sources are willing to open up a bit when you’re doing something like that. Obviously, you need to get to that point with all of those sources, to get them to be comfortable with you and willing to agree to your requests. It doesn’t always happen of course, but all you can do there is just spend time with people. It’s funny, the whole point of the big Dalton profile is how genuine he is and that’s how he connects. Mike Brown is very much like that. I’d like to think I am, too. So I’ve been able to develop good relationships with those two in less than a year. I don’t take it for granted and it’s always something you have to maintain and work on.