Top Draft Class

[jorev5]

This has probably been discussed before, but I was listening to Dan Hoard's Bengals Booth Podcast and he mentioned the 2020 class with Joe Burrow, Tee Higgins, and Logan Wilson. Which is the Bengals best Draft class of all time

2020 Joe Burrow, Tee Higgins, Logan Wilson, Akeem Davis Gaither, Marcus Bailey

2001 Justin Smith, Chad Johnson, Rudi Johnson, TJ Houshmandzadeh

Any old timers want to chime in? I was born in the 80s so I don't know as much from the earlier decades.

How about this one as the WHAT IF class:
2005 David Pollack, Chris Henry, Odell Thurman

[Anarumo_Savant]

2011 was decent

A.J Green, Dalton, Boling

[QueenCity]

2020 for several reasons.... but Burrow is the end all be all.

[Nicomo Cosca]

Any draft you get a true franchise QB >>>

[*bfine32*]

2012 gave us 6 solid players:
Kirkpatrick
Zeitler
Sanu
B. Thompson
Iloka
M. Jones

1969 gave us:
G. Cook
B. Bergey
K Riley

[Essex Johnson]

If you want to look at overall depth and impact I have to go with 1984
QB Boomer: franchise QB
RB Jennings: solid long time role player
OL- Blados Reimers Kozerski (all solid starters for a while)
DB Bussey: solid starter for a while

That is one solid draft especially when you had to trade your #1 pick in huntley who would contribute to Denver's SBs teams.

[Goalpost]

1977 draft gave us 5 starters in the Bengals 1st ever Super Bowl from the 1981 season.

Eddie Edwards DE
Wilson Whitley DT
Pete Johnson RB
Mike Wilson T
Louis Breeden DB

[Essex Johnson]

(12-10-2022, 08:53 PM)Goalpost Wrote: 1977 draft gave us 5 starters in the Bengals 1st ever Super Bowl from the 1981 season.

Eddie Edwards DE
Wilson Whitley DT
Pete Johnson RB
Mike Wilson T
Louis Breeden DB

solid draft no doubt still take 84 draft as a bit more impactful with 6 players playing a roles with our 2nd SB trip

[*Nate (formerly eliminate08)*]

(12-10-2022, 07:48 PM)jorev5 Wrote: This has probably been discussed before, but I was listening to Dan Hoard's Bengals Booth Podcast and he mentioned the 2020 class with Joe Burrow, Tee Higgins, and Logan Wilson.  Which is the Bengals best Draft class of all time

2020 Joe Burrow, Tee Higgins, Logan Wilson, Akeem Davis Gaither, Marcus Bailey

2001 Justin Smith, Chad Johnson, Rudi Johnson, TJ Houshmandzadeh

Any old timers want to chime in?  I was born in the 80s so I don't know as much from the earlier decades.  

How about this one as the WHAT IF class:
2005 David Pollack, Chris Henry, Odell Thurman

Adeniji was also in that 2020 Draft Class and he actually has been playing pretty good this year when he gets some snaps in jumbo packages.

Was really down on Adeniji but he was hurt when he played poorly and was playing out of position at Guard and he is a Tackle.

Agree with Dan on this one for sure.

[CJD]

2020 is going to be hard to beat. I was also born in the 80s, so I don't have an in person memory of the early generations of the Bengals.

My thought going in was 1980 may still be held as the best for now since that was the year we drafted Anthony Munoz, but I looked at the other players in that draft and there was only one other player that spent more than 3 years with the Bengals (and he seems to have been a back up for the majority of his career). 5 of the players didn't even have wikipedia pages haha.

1969 looks like it could have been an outstanding draft because they got Ken Riley, Bill Bergey and Greg Cook, who The NFL Network NFL Top Ten series named the #1 One Shot Wonder in NFL history. He won the Rookie of the year award and looked like a franchise QB before being injured and, since it was 1969, the medical technology wasn't what it is today, so his career ended after a brief comeback attempt 3 years later.

1971 looks similar to the 1980 season where we got an outstanding player (Kenny Anderson) but not much else. Vernon Holland was a serviceable player, but never an all pro or pro bowler or anything.

2006 was a draft that delivered a lot of regulars, including our likely 2nd Hall of Fame Lineman in Whitworth. Rucker, Peko, Joseph and Brooks all made impacts in the NFL as well. But Burrow transcends all of these, let alone the other players we got from 2020.

2001, I think, is probably going to end up being the runner up to 2020 in the long run. They got Chad Johnson, Rudi Johnson, Justin Smith and TJ Houshmandzadeh from a single draft. The only thing that holds that class back is it never resulted in any real success, whereas 2020 obviously did.

[*bfine32*]

2010 gave us 3 Pro Bowlers and the Rookie WR with the most receiving yards.

[*SHRacerX*]

(12-10-2022, 07:48 PM)jorev5 Wrote: This has probably been discussed before, but I was listening to Dan Hoard's Bengals Booth Podcast and he mentioned the 2020 class with Joe Burrow, Tee Higgins, and Logan Wilson.  Which is the Bengals best Draft class of all time

2020 Joe Burrow, Tee Higgins, Logan Wilson, Akeem Davis Gaither, Marcus Bailey

2001 Justin Smith, Chad Johnson, Rudi Johnson, TJ Houshmandzadeh

Any old timers want to chime in?  I was born in the 80s so I don't know as much from the earlier decades.  

How about this one as the WHAT IF class:
2005 David Pollack, Chris Henry, Odell Thurman

In 2020, they also had Khalid Kareem, who although isn't a starter or even on the team any longer, he did make a huge play to help beat Denver last year.

They also drafted Akeem Adeniji, who seems to be excelling now that they are leaving him at tackle.  

The 2021 draft class is pretty amazing as well:

Ja'Marr Chase-  I think will go down as the greatest WR of all time.  He will break all the records he said he would.  

Jackson Carman- Backup Guard, a disappointment.  

Joseph Ossai- Quality depth pass rusher

Cam Sample- Quality depth hybrid that can rotate inside

Tyler Shelvin- Fat but did carry Burrow off the field one time

D'Ante Smith-  Qualtiy depth at OT if he can stay healthy

Money Mac-  Maybe the second best kicker in the league only to Justin Tucker.

Trey Hill-  No longer with team, I think.  Held a lot.

Chris Evans-  Quality rotational back

Wyatt Huber-  Injured then retired.  

It doesn't have the top end star power starters like the 2020 draft with Burrow, Higgins, and Wilson, but has two top tier starters in Chase and Money Mac, and four quality rotational players.  But for me, 2020 is their best ever. 

That 2005 draft always comes up and makes me grit my teeth.  The "what could have been" draft is exactly right.  They also stole Fanane in round 7 of that draft who was a solid rotational player on the defensive line.  Oddly, his sister is the woman that had a child with Chris Henry that has been offered at OSU as a freshman in HS.  

[Forever Spinning Vinyl]

(12-11-2022, 10:57 AM)SHRacerX Wrote: Trey Hill-  No longer with team, I think.  Held a lot.

Admittedly . . . I had to look because I wasn't sure, but he's still on the roster.

He looked AWFUL last year and I haven't seen him play this year. He did have some good run blocks vs Cleveland in week 18, but looked like an early camp cut for a lot of snaps.

HOWEVER, he's now been in the system for 18 months vs the six months experience that we saw last year. As I've said before, many players plateau when they get to Cincinnati, some, like Pratt, continue to improve and grow every season. Maybe Hill is one of those guys. He's playing behind Karras right now. I'm guessing he's learned more behind Karras than he did from Hopkins. Hopkins and Spain started in the Super Bowl, and are still unsigned while Ogbuehi and Price still have NFL jobs. That's how bad they were. Hopefully Hill emulates Karras and forgets everything he learned from Hopkins.

[*SHRacerX*]

(12-11-2022, 11:34 AM)Forever Spinning Vinyl Wrote: Admittedly . . . I had to look because I wasn't sure, but he's still on the roster.

He looked AWFUL last year and I haven't seen him play this year. He did have some good run blocks vs Cleveland in week 18, but looked like an early camp cut for a lot of snaps.

HOWEVER, he's now been in the system for 18 months vs the six months experience that we saw last year. As I've said before, many players plateau when they get to Cincinnati, some, like Pratt, continue to improve and grow every season. Maybe Hill is one of those guys. He's playing behind Karras right now. I'm guessing he's learned more behind Karras than he did from Hopkins. Hopkins and Spain started in the Super Bowl, and are still unsigned while Ogbuehi and Price still have NFL jobs. That's how bad they were. Hopefully Hill emulates Karras and forgets everything he learned from Hopkins.

Good stuff.  He always struck me as a wall at the point of attack, but didn't have the length or technique to stick in the league.  He can get better on technique and maybe mask some of his deficiencies, but overall I have a lot more optimism for Smith and Adeniji as long as they leave them at tackle.  

[007BengalsFan]

(12-11-2022, 11:53 AM)SHRacerX Wrote: ... but overall I have a lot more optimism for Smith and Adeniji as long as they leave them at tackle.  

Maybe that could be an issue with Carman as well.  He was a tackle at Clemson and the Bengals tried to move him to guard.  Maybe he would play better at tackle if given the opportunity. 

[*SHRacerX*]

(12-11-2022, 02:17 PM)007BengalsFan Wrote: Maybe that could be an issue with Carman as well.  He was a tackle at Clemson and the Bengals tried to move him to guard.  Maybe he would play better at tackle if given the opportunity. 

Doesn't really have the length, or more importantly, the drive  He apparently was notoriously lazy athlete that took a lot to motivate.  You may get by in HS and college on talent alone, but clearly not in the NFL.  

Coaches and GMs often are arrogant believing that THEY have the secret sauce to motivate a player.  I'm sure there are times it works, but the NFL is difficult enough without having the drive to be great.  

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(12-10-2022, 07:48 PM)jorev5 Wrote: 2020 Joe Burrow, Tee Higgins, Logan Wilson, Akeem Davis Gaither, Marcus Bailey

2001 Justin Smith, Chad Johnson, Rudi Johnson, TJ Houshmandzadeh

It's probably not a good sign if you feel the need to put ADG and Bailey in there. There's also just no way to reasonably talk about how great a draft class from 3 years ago was if you want to compare them to guys who already finished their careers. 3 years into their careers, respectively, we thought Bates was one of the top safeties in the league and Jonah Williams was developing into a franchise LT. There's just no way to know how a guy's full career will end up this early on.

Burrow is always going to carry a lot of weight because franchise QBs are so valuable, but at the end of the day (for me) I have a hard time putting guys who could do it over guys who have done it. Burrow has the potential to be a HoFer, but Chad Johnson and Justin Smith already had careers where people were asking about the Hall of Fame when they retired and Rudi and Housh had solid careers with a Pro Bowl each.

It's a shame that Shipley blew his knee out after such a stellar rookie season, or 2010 might have to be thrown into the conversation with Atkins, Dunlap, and Gresham. 2006 with Whit, Jjo, Peko, Brooks, Rucker is an honorable mention, but probably lacks a true second elite level career after Whit to really compete.