(04-28-2020, 12:36 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: And yet the post that you quoted and replied to specifically mentioned the last 8 years not once but twice. Never said that Tobin has never had good drafts before, but he's creeping towards nearly a decade long streak of shitty results now.

Me: The last 8 years have been shit.
You: That's not true, because 9-12 years ago was not shit.
Me: 

I think the fact the Bengals coached the Senior bowl squad this year is a significant difference between Zac.1 and Zac.2.  Bengals put a premium on coaches input from player evals.  Last season position coaches were being hired during and after the combine.   These two factors had to play a part in the drafts but not necessarily in the FA picks. 

What is the difference makers in FA?  Money, money and money.  Follow the money.
The Bengals spent freely in 2020.  In 2020 they deliberately are trying to change the culture by getting rid of guys that worked hard enough to lose on Sunday.  Players see that too.

Maybe with FA, its that combination of changing a losing culture and spending money on the guys they targeted that explains their success?

(04-28-2020, 12:36 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: And yet the post that you quoted and replied to specifically mentioned the last 8 years not once but twice. Never said that Tobin has never had good drafts before, but he's creeping towards nearly a decade long streak of shitty results now.

Me: The last 8 years have been shit.
You: That's not true, because 9-12 years ago was not shit.
Me: 

Ah I apologize, that does make sense then, I had misinterpreted what you were saying slightly. Your argument is that there was a time Tobin was good but he has lost his touch. I can buy that logic. I was thinking you were in the 'has always been garbage' camp.

I personally think he's had a string of bad luck. In the past 8 years is when the 1st round injury bug has come into play. The reaches for OL help and straying away from BPA has also been an issue in the past few drafts.. I'm not certain if Tobin has any say in that.

I'm sticking by my thoughts that Tobin is good at his job and that this draft was an indicator of that, but I see what you are saying.

(04-28-2020, 11:54 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Any other organization and Tobin would have been fired with his drafting record over the previous 8 drafts.

Actually there are two other NFL teams who have only drafted 1 Pro Bowl player since 2013 and neither one of them have changed GMs.

I agree that the Bengals have missed on way too many high picks over the last several years, but there have been some decent picks and we don't know how much blame to place on Tobin for the flops.

(04-28-2020, 11:54 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Those are 6 good/okay/disappointing-high-potential players who have been to 0 Pro Bowls and have made 0 All-Pro lists.

Tobin has drafted 1 Pro Bowler in the last 8 years and that was Eifert, who honestly as a 1st round pick was a bust that had 1 good year.  (Nobody drafts 1st round TEs to average 307 yards per season.)

Any other organization and Tobin would have been fired with his drafting record over the previous 8 drafts

1.) We all know Media/Fans control the Pro bowl/ all Pro teams. So just because a player doesn't get the recognition they deserve doesn't mean there not worthy of it 
2.) How are Mixon, Boyd, and Hubbard disappointments? I get Bates and Jackson but they have shown the ability to be elite in the past and there both still have a ton left in the tank.
3.) Please Eifert getting freak injuries isn't Tobin's fault. When Tyler was healthy we had an elite player. Just wish he wasn't snake bitten.

(04-28-2020, 11:54 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Those are 6 good/okay/disappointing-high-potential players who have been to 0 Pro Bowls and have made 0 All-Pro lists.

Tobin has drafted 1 Pro Bowler in the last 8 years and that was Eifert, who honestly as a 1st round pick was a bust that had 1 good year.  (Nobody drafts 1st round TEs to average 307 yards per season.)

Any other organization and Tobin would have been fired with his drafting record over the previous 8 drafts.

Implying guys like Mixon, Boyd, and Hubbard are not really good players because they haven’t been voted to the Pro Bowl is downright silly. Especially in Mixon’s case, when he clearly should have been the year he led the AFC in rushing.

(04-28-2020, 01:21 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Actually there are two other NFL teams who have only drafted 1 Pro Bowl player since 2013 and neither one of them have changed GMs.

I agree that the Bengals have missed on way too many high picks over the last several years, but there have been some decent picks and we don't know how much blame to place on Tobin for the flops.

A couple of the biggest flops were on your boy Paul Alexander, who lost his job over it. I’m not blaming Tobin for those guys.

(04-28-2020, 01:03 PM)GreenCornBengal Wrote: Ah I apologize, that does make sense then, I had misinterpreted what you were saying slightly. Your argument is that there was a time Tobin was good but he has lost his touch. I can buy that logic. I was thinking you were in the 'has always been garbage' camp.

I personally think he's had a string of bad luck. In the past 8 years is when the 1st round injury bug has come into play. The reaches for OL help and straying away from BPA has also been an issue in the past few drafts.. I'm not certain if Tobin has any say in that.

I'm sticking by my thoughts that Tobin is good at his job and that this draft was an indicator of that, but I see what you are saying.

All good.

Yeah, either he lost his touch or something. Maybe just got unordinarily lucky for a couple years? Don't know. I just know right now that the 4 year streak of losing seasons is because of 8 years of uninspiring/bad drafting and FA coming back to haunt them.

It seems like the Bengals drafted the best when they just went with whomever the "Big Board" consensus best pick was (in a position of at least a little need) and fell flat on their faces when they started trying to get clever by doing things like taking a perceived super value pick at a position they didn't need at the time (Ogbuehi/Fisher/Dennard/Hill/Hunt/Clarke/Willis).

(04-28-2020, 01:53 PM)J24 Wrote: 1.) We all know Media/Fans control the Pro bowl/ all Pro teams. So just because a player doesn't get the recognition they deserve doesn't mean there not worthy of it 
2.) How are Mixon, Boyd, and Hubbard disappointments? I get Bates and Jackson but they have shown the ability to be elite in the past and there both still have a ton left in the tank.
3.) Please Eifert getting freak injuries isn't Tobin's fault. When Tyler was healthy we had an elite player. Just wish he wasn't snake bitten.

1. It becomes awfully easy to start calling part-time players like Lawson a "Pro Bowl Caliber" player if you start changing "Pro Bowl Caliber" mean "anyone that has a bit of talent".

2019: 42.7%
2018: 19.9%
2017: 41.9%

That's the amount of defensive snaps Lawson has played in his career. He's a talented role player with serious injury issues. Bates
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2. I wasn't as clear as I could have been. Boyd and Hubbard were in the "Good", Mixon was in the "Okay", and Jackson, Lawson, and Bates are in the "disappointments-with-potential". Jackson has absolutely 0 ball skills and struggled last year. Lawson can't stay healthy and is only a part time player, and Bates completely forgot how to tackle in his second year. They have potential, don't get me wrong, but they haven't put it together yet.
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3. Didn't say it was entirely Tobin's fault, but at the end of the day it is what it is and he has to own Ws and Ls just like a QB does even if his defense gives up a long TD or his WR lets a ball bounce off his hands and into a defender's for a pick 6.

(04-28-2020, 05:54 PM)Nicomo Cosca Wrote: Implying guys like Mixon, Boyd, and Hubbard are not really good players because they haven’t been voted to the Pro Bowl is downright silly. Especially in Mixon’s case, when he clearly should have been the year he led the AFC in rushing.

Boyd is not REALLY good because he's a #2 with a hard ceiling at #2. He can put up 1k yards for a losing team when he's forced into the #1 role, but he's very very clearly not a #1 in terms of ability. Even on a bad team with plenty of garbage time in a season where he was the #1 WR the whole year, he was the 25th WR in yardage in 2019. Are we going to call 25th Pro Bowl Caliber now? In the two wins, he had under 60 yards in both of them. In the 4 games last year where he had 100+ yards, the defense allowed an average of 30.25 points per game and they lost all 4.

Mixon is not REALLY good because he had 4 games under 2.0 YPC  last year and 8 under 4.0 YPC. He just feasted on running the ball a ton against the Browns and against the Ravens and Pats as they beat the everliving daylights out of the Bengals. Of his 1,137 yards (4.1 YPC), 308 yards (6.3 YPC) of them came in 2 games against the Browns. In non-Browns games last year he averaged just 3.6 YPC. He also had a 3.5 YPC rookie season. At this point his career averages pretty much make him a very apt comparison to Jeremy Hill after 3 years. Nobody said Jeremy Hill after 3 years was REALLY good. They both had just the 1 really good year.

Hubbard is pretty good, but I wouldn't call him really good yet. He went on a 9 game streak last year where he had just 1 sack. REALLY good players don't do that. He also needs to learn to attack the ball better. He could still grow, I guess, but here's not there yet.

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They're all three solid players, I am just not willing to agree that they are REALLY good players, or "Pro Bowl Caliber" players. I think that dilutes the term an awful lot. Like when people were calling Joe Flacco an "elite QB" for awhile there.

(04-29-2020, 12:47 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: All good.

Yeah, either he lost his touch or something. Maybe just got unordinarily lucky for a couple years? Don't know. I just know right now that the 4 year streak of losing seasons is because of 8 years of uninspiring/bad drafting and FA coming back to haunt them.

It seems like the Bengals drafted the best when they just went with whomever the "Big Board" consensus best pick was (in a position of at least a little need) and fell flat on their faces when they started trying to get clever by doing things like taking a perceived super value pick at a position they didn't need at the time (Ogbuehi/Fisher/Dennard/Hill/Hunt/Clarke/Willis).


1. It becomes awfully easy to start calling part-time players like Lawson a "Pro Bowl Caliber" player if you start changing "Pro Bowl Caliber" mean "anyone that has a bit of talent".

2019: 42.7%
2018: 19.9%
2017: 41.9%

That's the amount of defensive snaps Lawson has played in his career. He's a talented role player with serious injury issues. Bates
- - - - - - - - - - -
2. I wasn't as clear as I could have been. Boyd and Hubbard were in the "Good", Mixon was in the "Okay", and Jackson, Lawson, and Bates are in the "disappointments-with-potential". Jackson has absolutely 0 ball skills and struggled last year. Lawson can't stay healthy and is only a part time player, and Bates completely forgot how to tackle in his second year. They have potential, don't get me wrong, but they haven't put it together yet.
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3. Didn't say it was entirely Tobin's fault, but at the end of the day it is what it is and he has to own Ws and Ls just like a QB does even if his defense gives up a long TD or his WR lets a ball bounce off his hands and into a defender's for a pick 6.


Boyd is not REALLY good because he's a #2 with a hard ceiling at #2. He can put up 1k yards for a losing team when he's forced into the #1 role, but he's very very clearly not a #1 in terms of ability. Even on a bad team with plenty of garbage time in a season where he was the #1 WR the whole year, he was the 25th WR in yardage in 2019. Are we going to call 25th Pro Bowl Caliber now? In the two wins, he had under 60 yards in both of them. In the 4 games last year where he had 100+ yards, the defense allowed an average of 30.25 points per game and they lost all 4.

Mixon is not REALLY good because he had 4 games under 2.0 YPC  last year and 8 under 4.0 YPC. He just feasted on running the ball a ton against the Browns and against the Ravens and Pats as they beat the everliving daylights out of the Bengals. Of his 1,137 yards (4.1 YPC), 308 yards (6.3 YPC) of them came in 2 games against the Browns. In non-Browns games last year he averaged just 3.6 YPC. He also had a 3.5 YPC rookie season. At this point his career averages pretty much make him a very apt comparison to Jeremy Hill after 3 years. Nobody said Jeremy Hill after 3 years was REALLY good. They both had just the 1 really good year.

Hubbard is pretty good, but I wouldn't call him really good yet. He went on a 9 game streak last year where he had just 1 sack. REALLY good players don't do that. He also needs to learn to attack the ball better. He could still grow, I guess, but here's not there yet.

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They're all three solid players, I am just not willing to agree that they are REALLY good players, or "Pro Bowl Caliber" players. I think that dilutes the term an awful lot. Like when people were calling Joe Flacco an "elite QB" for awhile there.

Ffs I can’t even imagine investing the amount of time and energy that you put into shitting on this team and most of its players...

And honestly you’re just quibbling over semantics here. But sure, Leap, they’re just merely “solid” players. Whatever you say. Maybe some day they can be All Pro elite HOF bound world beaters like your boy Gresh...

(04-29-2020, 01:17 AM)Nicomo Cosca Wrote: Ffs I can’t even imagine investing the amount of time and energy that you put into shitting on this team and most of its players...

And honestly you’re just quibbling over semantics here. But sure, Leap, they’re just merely “solid” players. Whatever you say. Maybe some day they can be All Pro elite HOF bound world beaters like your boy Gresh...

I can't even imagine why you would want a football discussion board that only ever thinks the Bengals will win the SB every year, that they're a well run team, every draft is an A+ draft, and all their players would be Pro Bowlers if only it weren't for the national news disrespect.

That sounds like a seriously boring place of delusion.

I'm here to discuss football and my favorite team, not to drink orange kool aid and have a circle jerk of ignoring reality. I'm sorry I put time and energy into trying to make my posts statistically informative rather than just throwing out random opinions based off nothing but perception. Next time I will just say "nope, they're bad, you're a doo doo head" and we can call it a day if that's what you'd prefer that over statistical backing of my opinion.

Thinking a player is just "good" or "solid" isn't a slight, man. It's just not feeding into the belief that some people hold that every person who puts on a Bengals uniform is automatically twice as good as they really are.

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I've never ever claimed that Gresham was an All-Pro elite HoF bound world beater, I have only ever claimed he didn't deserve the level of shit he got from some fans and was better than some remember. Try again.

(04-29-2020, 01:31 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: I can't even imagine why you would want a football discussion board that only ever thinks the Bengals will win the SB every year, that they're a well run team, every draft is an A+ draft, and all their players would be Pro Bowlers if only it weren't for the national news disrespect.

That sounds like a seriously boring place of delusion.

I'm here to discuss football and my favorite team, not to drink orange kool aid and have a circle jerk of ignoring reality. I'm sorry I put time and energy into trying to make my posts statistically informative rather than just throwing out random opinions based off nothing but perception. Next time I will just say "nope, they're bad, you're a doo doo head" and we can call it a day if that's what you'd prefer that over statistical backing of my opinion.

Thinking a player is just "good" or "solid" isn't a slight, man. It's just not feeding into the belief that every person who puts on a Bengals uniform is automatically twice as good as they really are, that some people seem to hold.

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I've never ever claimed that Gresham was an All-Pro elite HoF bound world beater, I have only ever claimed he didn't deserve the level of shit he got from some fans and was better than some remember. Try again.

Your argument about garbage time or weak opponents, etc, can literally be used against every single player in the league. All players pad their numbers against bad teams.

You just seem to go out of your way to paint some of these guys in a negative light, or downplay their accomplishments. For example, what Joe Mixon has done for two seasons in a row behind an absolutely terrible OL is nothing short of Herculean, but you put on your best not impressed face, and throw out a bunch of biased numbers that only tell part of the story. Jeremy Hill wasn’t running behind an OL whose best player was Trey Hopkins.

It’s all good though. I’ll try to consume less “orange kool-aid” going forward.

(04-29-2020, 01:45 AM)Nicomo Cosca Wrote: Your argument about garbage time or weak opponents, etc, can literally be used against every single player in the league. All players pad their numbers against bad teams.

It is the difference between "statisical analysis" and "spin".  

You'll notice that when these guys talk about how Bengals do well against bad teams they never say how other good players do against bad teams.  And he never mentions that in lots of other blowouts the Patriots did not allow a bunch of garbage time yards.

It is basically trying to use staitstics without providing the real statistics to compare.  Try to make the Bengals look bad by eliminating most of the data.

For example he talks about how Mixon is not good because he played well against the Browns.  But the Browns played 14 other games and not a single other RB had as good of a game as Mixons worst one against them.

So untyil he starts posting stats showing what every other RB did agianst bad teams or how many yards every other team got in garbage time his stats are meaningless.

(04-29-2020, 01:45 AM)Nicomo Cosca Wrote: Your argument about garbage time or weak opponents, etc, can literally be used against every single player in the league. All players pad their numbers against bad teams.

You just seem to go out of your way to paint some of these guys in a negative light, or downplay their accomplishments. For example, what Joe Mixon has done for two seasons in a row behind an absolutely terrible OL is nothing short of Herculean, but you put on your best not impressed face, and throw out a bunch of biased numbers that only tell part of the story. Jeremy Hill wasn’t running behind an OL whose best player was Trey Hopkins.

It’s all good though. I’ll try to consume less “orange kool-aid” going forward.

You're just banging your head against a wall Nicomo...... He loves the downer role.

(04-27-2020, 05:31 PM)fredtoast Wrote: I just find it comical that a guy like you with a full time job doing somethiung else and no one else to assist you was better able to prepare for the 2019 draft than an NFL head coach with a large staff working full time to assist him.

The truth is we have no idea if this years draft will be any better than last years (other than Burrow who anyone with a pulse could have identified as the #1 pick).

And we definitely don't know if Tobin was pickinmg last year and Zac this year.  Maybe Zac was in charge of the draft last year and he screwed the pooch so bad they took the power away from him.

I sure am betting this Draft will be better cause Taylor and company had much more time to evaluate the players and had an
entire season to evaluate for what was the most part Marvin Lewis's team. I agree we don't have any idea who was picking who
in either of these drafts but I think we can narrow it down.

We have to also take into account this Free Agency and how it was so much different than years past in the way we really went
out and got good proven players in their prime to improve the team in our weak areas.

(04-27-2020, 06:05 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: You're right, we don't know any of that.  What we do know is that Zac was a late hire, thus they were really late in getting the staff assembled.  I thought that I remembered reading somewhere that at the combine was the first time some of the coaches had gotten together.

Exactly what I remember.

(04-27-2020, 06:05 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: You're right, we don't know any of that.  What we do know is that Zac was a late hire, thus they were really late in getting the staff assembled.  I thought that I remembered reading somewhere that at the combine was the first time some of the coaches had gotten together.

Dehner and Morrison have both mentioned that some of the coaches didn't meet until the combine, right before the player interviews. The first day of the combine was Feb. 26th and that's the same day that Nick Eason was hired as DL coach.

I have driven the Fire Tobin Bandwagon. We made a lot of good moves this offseason that make me have hope that he has the capability I want out of our GM. Having said that the Bengals front office is probably more of a democracy than any other team in the league. I don't know who makes the final decision on our OL roster choices. If it is Tobin... Jonah, Price, Hart, MJ, Xavier, and Hopkins have a lot to show in order for me to not have a major issue with Tobin.

When was the last time we can say we made a really good decision on an OL transaction?

(04-26-2020, 07:00 PM)corpjet Wrote: I would congratulate Zac more than Duke, Zac has clearly defined what him and his staff want in their players

I dont think we can decide if Taylor has done a good job till we see production.. we might only have 3 of our picks from last years draft make the team and sample our 2nd rounder did not produce much last year

(04-26-2020, 06:47 PM)Pat5775 Wrote: How much of the previous 5 drafts were on Duke? Or Marvin? Or Mike?? We may never know... but I think it’s very likely that Zac has much more say in the draft than anyone else in the organization. Marvin (and assistant head coach Paul Alexander) may have had more say than we realize as well.

They musta been outta ketchup the last few drafts.  

(04-26-2020, 07:00 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Yeah, I think that as this year plays out, we'll start to see why the Bengals were sold on Zac Taylor.  Last year, he was rather handcuffed by the fact that he had to pretty much "play the hand he was dealt", in terms of personnel on the roster.  He was patient, waited a year for some "dead money" levels to go down on some contracts, and then started making changes.

I have no facts to back it up, but I kind of feel like last year was thrown away, or "tanked" if you will, specifically to put the Bengals in the position to have their pick of the draft.  Why?  To maximize the overhaul efforts that we've witnessed over the course of this offseason.

Do I like it?  Hell yes!  Trying something new, after watching them beat their heads against the wall for 30 years was torturous.  Will it work?  I don't know.  But, I feel like I have faith in the direction that they are heading.

I think last year was a painful exercise in roster evaluation. Now that they're getting the pieces they want, the onus will definitely be on the staff to make the team a contender. Burrow may or may not have growing pains, but as long as the team win more than  6 or 7 games, I think that's progressing the right way.

(04-26-2020, 07:27 PM)GreenCornBengal Wrote: of course, but when those 3 guys went down in preseason, did they make the decision to focus more on the future?

I don't think they did, I think the team was just bad with a first year head coach who was over his head. It's still fun to imagine it was some genius plan.

I agree with this, but once the ship was sinking, I think they just put some stuff on tape, and evaluated the roster against the schemes they want ran. I mean, you don't start Ryan Finley if that's not the case.

Im very happy with the way we have re-designed our defense this offseason especially at the LB position. Hats off to Duke.