Here's my grade: A

#12 pick was turned into
LT Cordy Glenn & C Billy Price A++
The team needed a Center and wasn't going to find a better one on the waiver wire. If the team had waited until the second round to take a Center, the top 3 prospects would have all been off the board. The team correctly just took their guy and moved on.

S Jessie Bates B+
We needed a deep safety and not one in round 5. With better RTs off the board already, the team stuck to their board and traded back enabling them to move up in the 3rd, which got us a LB we probably wouldn't have gotten with the last pick in the 3rd round. So I like the maneuvering with this pick.

DE Sam Hubbard A-
I had seen analysts mock Hubbard to NE much earlier. We need a replacement for Michael Johnson and maybe Sam is the guy.

LB Malik Jefferson A
Should be an immediate upgrade over Vigil. With Brown, Jefferson and Burfict our LB corp suddenly looks much better than what we had last year.

RB Mark Walton C-
Team can't seem to go a whole draft without picking an injured guy. At least the team waited until the 4th round to spend a pick on an injured player. Insurance in case Bernard gets injured? Injured injury insurance.

Who knows if these guys will contribute at all.
CB Devontae Davis
DT Andrew Brown
CB Darius Phillips - Erickson's replacement as returner???
QB Logan Woodside
OG Rod Taylor
WR Auden Tate

Hubbard seems like the kind of DE that you want to have on the edge on 1st & 10, and kick inside to rush in passing situations.

(04-29-2018, 07:08 PM)Essex Johnson Wrote: the point was not that their were tackles but were they even close to par to another position player that they were looking at.. none of those rookies have started a game in the NFL.. I will still take Fisher over those tackles mentioned to start this season.  I love the Bates picked.. I felt we needed a quality safety over a maybe tackle and that is how the Bengals saw it.. obviously time will tell if they were right.

And my point wasn't that a drafted tackle would've been penciled in as starter, just that we needed competition. Am I the only one who has heard the saying competition breeds excellence? Okay then. I have nothing against Jake Fisher, but is he the type of player you want to pencil in with no real options behind him? With his health and play history? What about Redmond?

I don't think I'm way out of line for thinking we should have as much talent as we can competing for those spots...seeing how we really don't have great answers there.

As for the talent at tackle/guard vs the talent of the players we took...that's all debatable. It's the freaking draft, man. It's all a crapshoot. We act like we're experts or that Joe Mock Guy's word is gold, but the truth is none of us know for sure. Is Malik Jefferson really more talented than Orlando Brown? Meh. We'll see. 

Just a BTW, look at Sam Hubbard's stats and compare JJ Watt.
I see stats that are similar and Hubbard is bigger.
A little slower but his game stats are similar and Hubbard was more situational....

This is going to be a FUN year...


GO BENGALS

The more I look into it, it is a nice mix of adressed needs and prospects, so I give it a solid B+

(04-28-2018, 07:03 PM)yang Wrote: How does Pollack make them better?  Seriously.  

While we are at it we were 30th against the run last year.  30th.   What did we do to improve that?    We never drafted a starting player to address it.  

The LB won’t start and the DT might make a practice squad.   Granted we were horrible at running the ball so we needed to reach for a center but we never drafted an offensive guard or tackle either.   We let people like Connor Williams and Orlando Brown slide by.   I seriously don’t get it.  
Look at the horrible defensive line fodder Tobin has us drafting.   It’s been abysmal.  We got lucky with Geno years ago and whiffed since.

This Yang guy is something else.

(04-30-2018, 02:29 PM)Nate (formerly eliminate08) Wrote: This Yang guy is something else.

Yep. You should meet his twin brother Ying! 

I loved the draft, which is a nice change after I've been pretty critical/disappointed the last couple seasons.

It's kind of funny, though, the majority of folks I know who loved those drafts were lukewarm on this one. And ones like me who liked this one, didn't like those.

I think we addressed some serious areas of need, got both playmakers and depth guys, and we made some smart moves to maximize our picss. Hubbard, Price and Bates have chances to really step up with what I'm assuming will be lots of snaps. I'm hopeful Brown and Malik can develop.

Looking forward to camps and seeing what these guys can do.

(04-30-2018, 02:29 PM)Nate (formerly eliminate08) Wrote: This Yang guy is something else.

you didn't answer the question and post an ad hominem attack.   Nice. 

I gave it a B+. I think we hit out of the park with the 1st four picks! After that I wasn't to up to speed on the guys we took. In all honesty, I thought we wasted the 4th rd pick on Walton. He could have been the BPA, but that was my only "WTF" moment of the draft.

I know a lot of people were upset that we didn't take Orlando Brown but I think it will be a blessing. Also Crosby is horrific at pass blocking. He wouldn't beat out Fisher.

(04-30-2018, 04:01 PM)Benton Wrote: I loved the draft, which is a nice change after I've been pretty critical/disappointed the last couple seasons.

It's kind of funny, though, the majority of folks I know who loved those drafts were lukewarm on this one. And ones like me who liked this one, didn't like those.

I think we addressed some serious areas of need, got both playmakers and depth guys, and we made some smart moves to maximize our picss. Hubbard, Price and Bates have chances to really step up with what I'm assuming will be lots of snaps. I'm hopeful Brown and Malik can develop.

Looking forward to camps and seeing what these guys can do.

I agree with this.  I am one of those who liked the last couple drafts and am just lukewarm on this one.  well....I'm a little above lukewarm TBH.  I'm cautiously optimistic with this draft.....ya, that's a better assessment. It doesn't blow me away, but I really like the picks we took at our biggest area of concerns, ie Price, Bates, Hubbard and am very blah on other "luxury picks", ie Walton.   and why didn't we draft Allen Lazard??? 

a high B- to a B is my grade. 

I think the draft team did as good as they could, based on who was available at the time of each pick, and how that pick compared with what we currently have and where the team wants to go in the near future. But even this is a guess. None of us have the complete information on (at least) most of this. The Billy Price pick came closest out of all. Talent, learning capacity, contract terms of the incumbents, locker room influence and on and on .... all play a role in the decision-making process. All we get is what the media scrambles to spit out at us. WTS, looking at how this draft progressed, and looking at who was on the board at the time of each pick, it appears we had a plan with each pick being pretty well thought out.

I say an 'A'.

(05-01-2018, 02:09 PM)MentalRage Wrote: I know a lot of people were upset that we didn't take Orlando Brown but I think it will be a blessing. Also Crosby is horrific at pass blocking. He wouldn't beat out Fisher.

Crosby has a strange build to him.  His lower body is weak. 

A solid C. Like others have said we needed another O-lineman taken before the 7th, maybe a TE in there (even though this draft wasn't heavy with them). And I'm not sure why we took a Gio clone when we've shown we don't know how to use Gio in the first place.

(05-01-2018, 11:48 AM)yang Wrote: you didn't answer the question and post an ad hominem attack.   Nice. 

If you don't know how moving on from Paul Alexander to an O-line coach like Frank Pollack makes us better i don't
know what to say to you. It wasn't an attack, i just don't understand how you don't understand that coaching has
probably been the biggest thing holding this team back.

Bringing in a proven O-line coach that coached quite possibly the best O-line in football in Dallas is huge for this team.

(05-01-2018, 04:24 PM)Older Than You Too Wrote: A solid C. Like others have said we needed another O-lineman taken before the 7th, maybe a TE in there (even though this draft wasn't heavy with them). And I'm not sure why we took a Gio clone when we've shown we don't know how to use Gio in the first place.

westerman was one of the better guards in college..when he played late last year he was lights out..Fisher will be fine at RT

(04-29-2018, 03:24 PM)Beaker Wrote: It seems to me that ppl who are giving this draft a lower grade are doing so for lack of picking more O linemen. But most ppl also seem to forget that its been known for Months that this draft class was weak for O line.

Also ppl seem to forget that Westerman and Redmond, and to an extent Kent Perkins all played very well last year when they finally got their chance. They were not just coming in late in games and getting mop up garbage experience. They played full games against two teams in DET and BAL who both needed to win to make the playoffs. And these guys played extremely well, and in fact, dominated for periods of time.

I would much rather go with the commodity we know in Westerman, Redmond and Perkins than in reaching for an unknown in a weak O line class. I give the coaches the benefit of knowing what we have vs what was available when we picked. You cannot just draft for the O line, we had holes all over the roster that they have addressed very well with a wide range of picks.

I give this draft a strong B. It did not get an A because we did not have sliders like we got last year at tremendous value like Willis and Lawson. But that's OK, sometimes the picks do not fall like they did last year.

agreed..excellent post

(04-29-2018, 06:21 AM)Weazzel80 Wrote: I give them a C.

I like all the players we got, but I always do. I'm not happy about ignoring the offensive line for yet another year. Glenn and Price are nice, but with how bad our line was last year and with how many picks we had; we should have done more. Last years mistake was trusting what was already on the roster; we are still doing that with the right side of our o-line. We brought in competition at pretty much every spot except Guard and Tackle; two of our biggest needs.

I hope to be proved wrong though.

glenn..price and ..remember..westerman was a rookie last year..he was great last two games of the season when they finally played him..westerman was one of the better guards in college by the way

O line will be fine

(05-01-2018, 07:25 PM)cooper Wrote: westerman was one of the better guards in college..when he played late last year he was lights out..Fisher will be fine at RT

No, Fisher is trash.