From reading this SI article, seems like he at least still has his hands all over the draft.

https://www.si.com/nfl/bengals/allbengals-insiders-plus/bengals-get-mike-browns-guy-an-inside-look-at-their-pursuit-of-jackson-carman?fbclid=IwAR2CBHW7Gm0ZMxF3eNVWr4uobVda5hYbdIJi-p4noI_v5qWKLu9h7rFh7B0

Quote:Cincinnati's own Jackson Carman is making his way back to Queen City after the Bengals selected him with the 46th pick in the 2021 NFL Draft.

Everyone knows Joe Burrow needs more time in the pocket and the Clemson alum is looking forward to having a big role in keeping his new quarterback upright this season.

"I blocked for the No. 1 pick this year [Jaguars QB Trever Lawrence] and I’ll be blocking for another No. 1 pick. It’s the same thing, just going in and doing my job at the highest level," Carman said. "It’s a blessing to be able to protect Joe Burrow. It’s even crazier knowing that I was just playing against him two years ago [in the National Championship]. It’s really an amazing full-circle experience.”

Some may have been surprised that Cincinnati didn’t take Penei Sewell with the fifth overall pick on Thursday night, but former Bengals offensive line coach Paul Alexander says team owner Mike Brown zeroed in on Carman from the start.

“I talked to Mike about it, I go right to the top,” Alexander joked. “When I talked to Mike I said ‘hey Mike, here are the 25 guys that I worked with for the draft. Who do you want to talk about?’ The first thing he said was, ‘tell me about Jackson Carman.’ I was kind of like 'wow.' I thought first they’d want to know about Penei Sewell and go down the line and all that kind of stuff and he wanted to talk about Jackson and obviously I gave a strong endorsement and I think he’s going to be terrific.”


Alexander believes he had the profile of a first round pick after working closely with Carman in the offseason.

“I don’t know why the mock drafters had him lower than that if anything I had him as a first round pick instead of a third round pick,” Alexander said. “ I think a lot of the evaluations this year because of COVID precautions and restrictions were a little bit off this year.”

Alexander seemed shocked that Carman fell on other draft boards because of his ability to be a plug-and-play type of player.

“Is he a first round pick? No question he is," Alexander said without hesitation. "He is going to start right away and in his career he’s going to at least be an average NFL starter at his position, maybe better, so that’s why I see him more as a first rounder.”

The Bengals share similar views. They were targeting Carman at No. 38, before ultimately trading down to the 46th pick and adding two extra fourth round selections that ultimately became defensive tackle Tyler Shelvin and offensive tackle D'Ante Smith.

The organization believes Carman can be a day one starter.

"He’ll come in and compete at guard for us. He’s played a lot of tackle at Clemson. We feel good about the position flexibility there, but he’ll come in and compete at guard right away," Bengals head coach Zac Taylor said. "He’s done it for a long time there at a very high level. He has great athleticism. He’s shown he can do it against really good competition. You can turn on the tape and see him do it against a bunch of guys that went in the first round of the draft the last few years. He held his own, and we certainly feel like there’s a lot of upside with Jackson."


The Clemson tackle will be competing for a starting spot at right guard. Making the switch from tackle to guard will be a challenge from a mental standpoint, but Alexander believes Carman will be able to learn and handle the position quickly.

“He’ll have a little work to do, but the good thing about him is that he has the ideal body frame to play either guard or tackle,” Alexander said. “You probably have triple the amount of calls at guard than you do tackle and different possibilities of things that can happen so he’ll have to learn that. He’ll have to get into that whole rhythm of communication and execution.”

Bengals offensive line coach Frank Pollack seems to agree that there will be a learning curve for Carman, but with repetition, he's built to handle the extra work load that comes at guard.

“The action is going to happen a lot faster when you go inside," Pollack said. "He’s going to have to take on guys sooner, a little quicker—he’s not going to have the time and space he’s used to working with. He’s going to have to anchor a lot faster. He’s going to be dealing with a little more powerful, stronger players inside. He’s shown to have all the strengths to be able to make that transition.”


Alexander worked with 25 offensive lineman that heard their names throughout draft weekend. He believes Carman knew current players in the league better than any of the other players he was around.

“We’d be watching film and he’d say, ‘yeah, that’s T.J. Watt, you’ve got to do this or that’ or ‘oh, he plays left tackle for them,’” Alexander said. “I was trying to break down all of these players and I can’t believe how much he knows. He instinctively knows by seeing, but he also models himself that way which is really important. A lot of guys come into the league and they don’t know anything. They put all of their emphasis on their college life, but this kid was always looking forward. He is a driven guy who has the right makeup and obviously has the right physical ability."

The Bengals' offensive line looks different than it did last season. Jonah Williams is set to start at left tackle, Quinton Spain and Xavier Su'a-Filo will likely compete for the starting left guard spot. Trey Hopkins will start at center if healthy, followed by Billy Price. If things go as planned, Carman will line up at right guard and Riley Reiff will be Cincinnati's starting right tackle.

Some may consider the Carman pick a reach, but the Bengals think he will have an instant impact on their team in 2021.

Just what I wanted to read to make me optimistic about the Bengals future... an article about the brain trust that is the "retired" Mike Brown and "fired" Paul Alexander deciding the draft for the Bengals.

Sounds like Mike Brown wanted Carman. So that makes sense why we drafted him over some of the other top OL that were available. I feel a lot better about the pick now.

PA and Mike Brown were surprised Carman was not drafted higher because everyone on My Space loved him.

Can't wait to see it in action in the fall. It will be very interesting to see if the Bengals are smarter than most everyone else or not. History says "nah" but we can hope right?

I need your help getting behind this draft fellas.

(05-02-2021, 09:14 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Just what I wanted to read to make me optimistic about the Bengals future... an article about the brain trust that is the "retired" Mike Brown and "fired" Paul Alexander deciding the draft for the Bengals.

They tried to reach out to Dave Shula to get his opinion of the picks as well but he was too busy dealing with a customer complaint at the steakhouse and had to comp the entire meal. 

(05-02-2021, 09:14 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Just what I wanted to read to make me optimistic about the Bengals future... an article about the brain trust that is the "retired" Mike Brown and "fired" Paul Alexander deciding the draft for the Bengals.

More concerned with Alexander Influence n the organization. This alone reduces my expectations from this draft to even lower


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(05-02-2021, 09:23 PM)Murdock2420 Wrote: They tried to reach out to Dave Shula to get his opinion of the picks as well but he was too busy dealing with a customer complaint at the steakhouse and had to comp the entire meal. 

Just remember anything less than 7 wins this season and he's better than Zac Failure.

(05-02-2021, 09:26 PM)Bronxbengal Wrote: More concerned with Alexander Influence n the organization.


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Paul Alexander is now a well respected personal offensive line coach that works with the top NFL prospects including Penei Sewell. It's very likely every NFL Team in the league called him up and asked him about the players he worked with...

Y'all really believe this crap? Paul Alexander struggling to remain relevant.

(05-02-2021, 09:14 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Just what I wanted to read to make me optimistic about the Bengals future... an article about the brain trust that is the "retired" Mike Brown and "fired" Paul Alexander deciding the draft for the Bengals.

Yes, this article kind of took me by surprise.  Several statements from the team management have led us to believe that Mike Brown was at least Semi-Retired, and not really "hands on" with the operations of the team any longer.  Now, unless Paul Alexander just made up those quotes from his conversation with Mike Brown, it seems like perhaps the team management may have been misleading the fan base for whatever reasons.

I mean, I get it.  Mike Brown is still alive, and he is still the President of the team.  However, I don't like that they have been on a PR effort for years, purporting that Katie has "taken over" operations of the team, responsible for so many of the recent changes in the way the Bengals are doing business and such, only to find out that Mike is indeed, still the one pulling the strings behind the curtain.  I won't say that it's "dishonest", as they have never said that Mike has fully retired, I mean it's their team, and they can run it any way that they choose to.  I'm just saying that as fans, if we thought that the torch of management and decision making had been passed, maybe we were wrong to think that way.

If you had told me last week that Mikey would speak with Paul Alexander about picking Jackson Carman, I would have laughed pretty hard. Yet here we are.

Honestly, I think it looks worse than it is. It would have presumably been even more like Monty Python had our former OL coach had a seat at the table in the War Room lol. For all we know maybe Mikey was just the middleman, who reached out for PA's opinion only after Zac, Pollack and co. had told him who they were targeting. For all we know maybe Mikey was our friend, just making sure that his staff hadn't gone completely mad.

I appreciate this link. Good insights.

It's pretty impressive that 25 of the 46 draft prospects taken in the draft this year all sought out Paul Alexander to prepare them for the draft.

Most of them we're all top prospects. The more studious of the bunch seem to seek out both Willie and Paul. I'm glad for both.

(05-02-2021, 09:26 PM)BengalsRocker Wrote: Just remember anything less than 7 wins this season and he's better than Zac Failure.

That is a terrifying thought.

(05-02-2021, 09:30 PM)Sled21 Wrote: Y'all really believe this crap? Paul Alexander struggling to remain relevant.

Yes, I absolutely believe this. Why would anyone who has been a fan of this team for any length of time and watched what Mike Brown does, have any doubt that he would reach out to a guy who he publicly supported when the entire fanbase wanted him gone? 

Mike seems to dislike change and is loyal to a fault, so I'm not sure why anyone would doubt for a moment that he values the opinion of Alexander more then he should.

(05-02-2021, 09:34 PM)tms Wrote: Honestly, I think it looks worse than it is. It would have presumably been even more like Monty Python had our former OL coach had a seat at the table in the War Room lol. For all we know maybe Mikey was just the middleman, who reached out for PA's opinion only after Zac, Pollack and co. had told him who they were targeting.

I actually find this not unlikely at all... he's thinking Sewell and is told they want to go Chase.  He asks "well, what about the line?" and hears "Carman Jackson" whom he's know jack-all about.  Who does he reach out to? - the guy he's known for decades.

Even less unlikely ... that Alexander uses it in an interview to pump up both his ego and profile.  I mean, credit to the guy for being a top coach for a very long time but he did/does seem to have a massive ego.

That’s good. I think we hit on Jonah but he was the first offensive linemen picked in his draft. But before that whoever was making our OL selections was terrible.

Mike has seen some good ones in his time and was probably tired of his people botching his OL picks and decided to do it himself.

Fans five years ago: "We'll never have a decent line with Piano Man and Mike Brown controlling the draft! We're doomed!"

Lots of fans on Saturday: "It's a new day! The OL is going to be great! Why wouldn't Carman start!? Are you dumb!!?? CARMAN SHOULD HAVE BEEN A FIRST ROUNDER DESPITE HIS THIRD ROUND GRADE!!!!!!!! HE'S A DAY -1 STARTER!!!!!!!!!! WE SHOLD'VE HAD CARMAN TWO YEARS AGO HE'S THAT *** ***** GOOOOOOOOD!"

Sunday night: "Mike Brown and Paul Alexander collaborated on the Carman pick."

The fact that Alexander thinks guys with first round grades should be "average NFL starters" tells you all you need to know.

We think this guy will be average! Hooray!

I was aiming for a bit better than average to protect the franchise. Call me crazy.

I was worried but since Alexander gave his blessing I know now Carman can indeed pour ketchup. Those hamburgers must taste real good


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(05-02-2021, 09:30 PM)Sled21 Wrote: Y'all really believe this crap? Paul Alexander struggling to remain relevant.

There you have it.  Jackson Carman passed the ketchup test!