(01-20-2020, 03:00 PM)Whatever Wrote: If you're concerned about the OL and protecting Burrow, you need to address it in FA, not the draft.  The chances of getting an immediate upgrade of significance are slim.  Not saying it's the gospel, but here's the PFF grades for the 4 T's drafted after Jonah last year....

Tytus Howard-59.4
Andre Dillard-59.7
Cody Ford-52.4
Jawaan Taylor-63.9

Bobby Hart-57.7
Fred Johnson-62.6

Fred is ahead of the curve in the quality of play you would expect out of a late 1st-early 2nf round pick. This is also a young OL room with only two guys not on their rookie deals.  Stacking youth on top of youth isn't a good idea because of the steep development curve for OL.

Not sure where you're getting your LB counts from, but we have 3 under contract and 1 RFA who is basically a guaranteed resign.  Vigil and an UFA would make 6.

I’m definitely not counting Brady Sheldon at LB. The guy hasn’t even been able to stick on practice squads for teams with not very good defenses. And I don’t want to count Hardy Nickerson the RFA who is a practice squad level talent. We need a massive talent upgrade at LB. Not to fill out the roster with guys who we know are not NFL caliber starters.

Nothing wrong with adding youth to a young OL room. I want the guys with upside not more John Jerry’s and Andre smiths. Bring more youth in along with our new QB and let them grow up together.

Again I get the Fred Johnson love. But we don’t have a very big sample size. And his most impressive work was against the browns who didn’t have their stud DE and their other best was not fully healthy. It is bonkers to invest the #1 pick on a QB and then say we will protect him with a guy coming off of shoulder surgery and no NFL snaps, Bobby Hart, and a guy picked up off the scrap heap who had a good game against the Browns. Bonkers!!

I don’t see myself complaining any time soon that our OL is too deep.

(01-20-2020, 06:46 PM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: I’m definitely not counting Brady Sheldon at LB. The guy hasn’t even been able to stick on practice squads for teams with not very good defenses. And I don’t want to count Hardy Nickerson the RFA who is a practice squad level talent. We need a massive talent upgrade at LB. Not to fill out the roster with guys who we know are not NFL caliber starters.

Nothing wrong with adding youth to a young OL room. I want the guys with upside not more John Jerry’s and Andre smiths. Bring more youth in along with our new QB and let them grow up together.

Again I get the Fred Johnson love. But we don’t have a very big sample size. And his most impressive work was against the browns who didn’t have their stud DE and their other best was not fully healthy. It is bonkers to invest the #1 pick on a QB and then say we will protect him with a guy coming off of shoulder surgery and no NFL snaps, Bobby Hart, and a guy picked up off the scrap heap who had a good game against the Browns. Bonkers!!

I don’t see myself complaining any time soon that our OL is too deep.

So you don't count LB's who are under contract, but count WR's that are UFA's as locks?  The LB talent on the roster is debatable, but saying we only have 2 under contract to make it seem like we need to draft multiples to fill out the depth chart is flat out false.

OL take years to develop.  You draft and develop.  When you draft youth on top of more youth, you wind up cutting guys before they have finished their development curve and rinsing and repeating.  You don't get better.  If you need an immediate upgrade, you need to look to FA to do it.  You also need veterans to help the young players along.  They have plenty of young guys to develop.  They don't have capable vets to help them develop or keep Burrow upright.  

(01-20-2020, 11:11 PM)Whatever Wrote: So you don't count LB's who are under contract, but count WR's that are UFA's as locks?  The LB talent on the roster is debatable, but saying we only have 2 under contract to make it seem like we need to draft multiples to fill out the depth chart is flat out false.

OL take years to develop.  You draft and develop.  When you draft youth on top of more youth, you wind up cutting guys before they have finished their development curve and rinsing and repeating.  You don't get better.  If you need an immediate upgrade, you need to look to FA to do it.  You also need veterans to help the young players along.  They have plenty of young guys to develop.  They don't have capable vets to help them develop or keep Burrow upright.  

No I don't count some athlete from Ferris State who has been cut from multiple practice squads and is going to be 27 years old and has zero NFL stats. Do you realize how desperate we were for LB help last year? We do need to draft multiple LBs to fill out the depth chart. I am not OK with just accepting barely practice squad caliber LBs to try to fix our biggest weakness. 

I'm not sure what you are looking at. Please fill in the blanks after Pratt and Evans. And don't give some 27 year old about to wash out of the league. And Vigil is more of a question mark to return than AJ. 

And yes I am counting the best player on our team. AJ Green is not going anywhere. If he is healthy he will be catching TDs from Burrow.

We have 3 veterans on the OL to offer advice and help young guys. Hopkins, Miller, and Hart. We have coaches who were hired and are paid to develop players. We need to build around our future franchise player. We start by protecting him. Rolling with a paper thin OL group filled out by UDFAs and guys picked up on waivers is not the way I want to build the team around our new QB. We only have 3 offensive linemen on the team who came to us with one of our draft picks. 2 of those came last year.... After a 2-14 season now is not the time to stop trying to fix the OL.

(01-20-2020, 11:11 PM)Whatever Wrote: So you don't count LB's who are under contract, but count WR's that are UFA's as locks?  The LB talent on the roster is debatable, but saying we only have 2 under contract to make it seem like we need to draft multiples to fill out the depth chart is flat out false.

OL take years to develop.  You draft and develop.  When you draft youth on top of more youth, you wind up cutting guys before they have finished their development curve and rinsing and repeating.  You don't get better.  If you need an immediate upgrade, you need to look to FA to do it.  You also need veterans to help the young players along.  They have plenty of young guys to develop.  They don't have capable vets to help them develop or keep Burrow upright.  

That's been the Bengals philosophy. The problem is they look for more mid-tier veterans just to be stopgaps for a year or two until the drafted player comes along. And the really big thing that's caused the Bengals to get where they are now is a lack of that drafted talent to actually develop into good, reliable players.

With that said, I think someone drafted in the 1st round needs to have the talent to be a starter Year 1. They don't have to be an outstanding starter yet, but they need to not be atrocious out there.
From there, I see basically a year going by for each round. So if you're a 2nd rounder, I'm perfectly ok seeing you take a year to develop before starting. 2 years for 3rd rounders. 3 years for 4th rounders.

(01-21-2020, 09:20 AM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: No I don't count some athlete from Ferris State who has been cut from multiple practice squads and is going to be 27 years old and has zero NFL stats. Do you realize how desperate we were for LB help last year? We do need to draft multiple LBs to fill out the depth chart. I am not OK with just accepting barely practice squad caliber LBs to try to fix our biggest weakness. 

I'm not sure what you are looking at. Please fill in the blanks after Pratt and Evans. And don't give some 27 year old about to wash out of the league. And Vigil is more of a question mark to return than AJ. 

And yes I am counting the best player on our team. AJ Green is not going anywhere. If he is healthy he will be catching TDs from Burrow.

We have 3 veterans on the OL to offer advice and help young guys. Hopkins, Miller, and Hart. We have coaches who were hired and are paid to develop players. We need to build around our future franchise player. We start by protecting him. Rolling with a paper thin OL group filled out by UDFAs and guys picked up on waivers is not the way I want to build the team around our new QB. We only have 3 offensive linemen on the team who came to us with one of our draft picks. 2 of those came last year.... After a 2-14 season now is not the time to stop trying to fix the OL.

He's under contract.  You can't just omit him because you think he sucks.  LB's are relatively cheap in FA and there's always serviceable vets floating around.

AJ hasn't been our best player for like a year and half.  So you're going to back the Brink's truck up to his door and hope he doesn't get another season ending injury so you can forgo drafting WR's in one of the deepest classes ever.  They can get a good G and LB with what they'd have to pay AJ and not have to luck into a good rookie starter in the draft.

You can't be serious with that UDFA/waiver line.  You realize 5 of the 8 WR's we have under contract for next year are UDFA's and two of them were cut by other teams, right?  Of the remaining 3, 1 is a 7th rounder and 2 have a fairly extensive injury history.  

(01-21-2020, 10:55 AM)ochocincos Wrote: That's been the Bengals philosophy. The problem is they look for more mid-tier veterans just to be stopgaps for a year or two until the drafted player comes along. And the really big thing that's caused the Bengals to get where they are now is a lack of that drafted talent to actually develop into good, reliable players.

With that said, I think someone drafted in the 1st round needs to have the talent to be a starter Year 1. They don't have to be an outstanding starter yet, but they need to not be atrocious out there.
From there, I see basically a year going by for each round. So if you're a 2nd rounder, I'm perfectly ok seeing you take a year to develop before starting. 2 years for 3rd rounders. 3 years for 4th rounders.

It depends a lot on the position group for me.  If you're drafting an OL to be a plug and play starter outside of the Top 10 anymore, you're in deep trouble.  A lot of guys get by on size and strength in college and just can't cope with guys who've had years in NFL weight rooms.  A lot of guys also come from relatively simple blocking schemes and can't mentally jump right in, either.