Quote:The Bengals head to Indianapolis this weekend for the first prime time NFL scouting combine with the No. 1 pick in hand in what looks to be a first ballot coronation for LSU quarterback Joe Burrow.

But it's also a major event for the Bengals defense and its staff as coordinator Lou Anarumo. He continues to develop his hybrid 3-4 scheme that began to take shape last year during his first season and they hope to have a big haul picking at the top of every round.

When Anarumo arrived in Indy for the combine a year ago, he barely had enough time to exchange his interview suit for Bengals gear after joining new head coach Zac Taylor's staff.

"We're so far ahead, we're light years ahead of evaluating these guys in the draft and free agency," Taylor said. "We have a better understanding of how our personnel fits our defense and our schemes."

Burrow, of course, is the headliner. The Heisman Trophy winner from just down the road in Athens, Ohio, is scheduled to meet the media Tuesday at about 9 a.m., before he sits down with the Bengals for his formal interview that is expected to include team president Mike Brown.

Amid the noise surrounding Burrow and the Bengals, Taylor doesn't see himself or the organization trying to sell itself to Burrow or the other potential No. 1s.

"No," Taylor said. "We believe in what we're doing here and you talk to anyone in this building and they would echo that. Players, coaches, personnel, everybody believes in what we're doing. We're excited to get to know these guys. Let them feel our energy and what we're all about."

The Burrow interview is one of 45 the Bengals are allotted by the league, 15 fewer than the past because the workouts and testing are now in prime time on NFL Network. The sessions are slightly longer, about 18 minutes, but Bengals director of player personnel Duke Tobin admits "it's not ideal," to lose 15 interview slots. More often than not the Bengals select players in the early rounds that they've met with in Indy.

It's a blow softened by the Bengals coaching last month's Senior Bowl, which not only put them in daily contact with many of the combine players on the South but also allowed exclusive access to the North prospects. Still, it's the first time they get to speak to so many players and the new schedule won't alter their routine by much.


"We're equipped to handle it better than some only because we had them at the Senior Bowl and that's a real benefit to us," Tobin said. "Our focus is still trying to get in front of the guys we're heavily interested in. We try to cover most position groups. It's never a determining factor whether we had that 18 minutes with him or not. We get time at pro days, which is valuable. Sometimes we visit campus or there are times we can bring him to Cincinnati."

For instance, before the draft the Bengals can visit Burrow, or any prospect for that matter, at three sites. At LSU, in his hometown of Athens and Paul Brown Stadium. But the combine is always convenient, although the Bengals always seem to be trying to make the room smaller in the name of efficiency. Along with Tobin and his scouts are ownership, Taylor, a coordinator and a position coach, along with a psychologist, so it's far from a breezy little wine-and-cheese bit. The interviews have moved this year from the players' hotel to Lucas Oil Stadium, so there could be some more space for the talks.

"We like to involve the scouting process so we can make informed recommendations," Tobin said. "The combine interview is a part of that. We don't have restrictions. What we tell our guys is if there are questions to be asked we normally get to them in that setting. And there are often things we want to follow up with after the combine at pro days. Ultimately it's a chance to kind of put the personality with what we know about him on the field."

The interviews have moved from the players' hotel to Lucas Oil Stadium, so there could be some more room.

Everyone is interested in how the players will react to the night workouts.

"Sure it's a difference," Tobin said. "It's the difference between a 1 p.m. Sunday game and a Monday night game. The national audience should be a benefit to the players. They should like that in terms of a prime-time audience. We'll see how it goes from a logistical standpoint."

Anarumo is certainly looking for prime-time players, but he won't get specific. What we do know is that after the late, rough start, the defense played better the longer it was at it. In the first half of the season they gave up the most yards in the league. During the last half of the season they were ranked very near the middle of the pack at No. 17.

(03-04-2020, 09:11 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Not sure how many missed this, but thanks to jj24 bringing it up in another thread, I thought it was worth all of us having a conversation about.  If Lou Anarumo has been given permission to change the base alignment of the Bengals defense, that not only changes what we see on the field, but it also means they will be drafting/signing defensive players with different particular skill sets than we have been used to under the 4-3 that we have been used to seeing.

Hobson let this info slip out matter of factly, in a combine lead up article.  I'm surprised that more didn't catch this at the time.

https://www.bengals.com/news/bengals-prime-for-combine-don-t-forget-the-defense

(03-04-2020, 09:36 PM)sandwedge Wrote: I actually caught that when the article came out, but I thought it was a typo. With the size of the LBs coming out this year, a lot of them in the 220 lbs range, the switch to the 3-4 makes sense.

(03-04-2020, 09:41 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Yes, it put's a lot more emphasis on having good LBs and Safeties, which I happen to think is a good thing.  When you can effectively take away the middle of the field as a playground for opposing QBs, it makes the job of the CBs so much easier, as they know where the action is coming.

(03-04-2020, 09:41 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Yes, it put's a lot more emphasis on having good LBs and Safeties, which I happen to think is a good thing.  When you can effectively take away the middle of the field as a playground for opposing QBs, it makes the job of the CBs so much easier, as they know where the action is coming.

(03-04-2020, 10:21 PM)BengalChris Wrote: We happen to not have any "good" LBers and only one good safety. Pratt is okay, but he wasn't in the "good" range last season. I figured we needed 2 new LBers this off season, but if we're going to put 4 on the field we'll need 3 - my book.

And, I'd like to point out that the competition the Bengals faced in the second half of the season was some of the poorer teams in the league. Against the two teams the Bengals played with winning records in the second half, those two teams scored 49 and 34 points against the defense. And they gave up 35 to a bad Miami team. That's not winning defensive football.

 

(03-04-2020, 10:38 PM)jason Wrote: Hoping to see more of Andrew Billings dropping into coverage... That was awesome.

(03-04-2020, 10:49 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Get with the program, in a 3-4 defense, guys like Sam Hubbard and Carl Lawson are now OLBs.  Pratt and Vigil would actually make a decent pair of ILBs in a 3-4 setup.

(03-04-2020, 10:21 PM)BengalChris Wrote: We happen to not have any "good" LBers and only one good safety. Pratt is okay, but he wasn't in the "good" range last season. I figured we needed 2 new LBers this off season, but if we're going to put 4 on the field we'll need 3 - my book.

And, I'd like to point out that the competition the Bengals faced in the second half of the season was some of the poorer teams in the league. Against the two teams the Bengals played with winning records in the second half, those two teams scored 49 and 34 points against the defense. And they gave up 35 to a bad Miami team. That's not winning defensive football.

 

(03-04-2020, 10:38 PM)jason Wrote: Hoping to see more of Andrew Billings dropping into coverage... That was awesome.

(03-04-2020, 10:49 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Get with the program, in a 3-4 defense, guys like Sam Hubbard and Carl Lawson are now OLBs.  Pratt and Vigil would actually make a decent pair of ILBs in a 3-4 setup.

(03-04-2020, 10:21 PM)BengalChris Wrote: We happen to not have any "good" LBers and only one good safety. Pratt is okay, but he wasn't in the "good" range last season. I figured we needed 2 new LBers this off season, but if we're going to put 4 on the field we'll need 3 - my book.

And, I'd like to point out that the competition the Bengals faced in the second half of the season was some of the poorer teams in the league. Against the two teams the Bengals played with winning records in the second half, those two teams scored 49 and 34 points against the defense. And they gave up 35 to a bad Miami team. That's not winning defensive football.

 

(03-04-2020, 09:11 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Not sure how many missed this, but thanks to jj24 bringing it up in another thread, I thought it was worth all of us having a conversation about.  If Lou Anarumo has been given permission to change the base alignment of the Bengals defense, that not only changes what we see on the field, but it also means they will be drafting/signing defensive players with different particular skill sets than we have been used to under the 4-3 that we have been used to seeing.

Hobson let this info slip out matter of factly, in a combine lead up article.  I'm surprised that more didn't catch this at the time.

https://www.bengals.com/news/bengals-prime-for-combine-don-t-forget-the-defense

(03-04-2020, 09:36 PM)sandwedge Wrote: I actually caught that when the article came out, but I thought it was a typo. With the size of the LBs coming out this year, a lot of them in the 220 lbs range, the switch to the 3-4 makes sense.