2023 OL Draft Prospects Group Assessments

[*Synric*]

(01-27-2023, 01:58 AM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: I wanted Faalele last year too. He did get a start at LT for the Ravens this year too I believe. But Dawand looks like he moves much better than Faalele and he looks like he plays with a lot more attitude.


I just keep going to sleep with visions of TJ watt pancakes dancing in my head. And would really like to be giddy like a school girl watching him play for my team.

Last year I was off Faalele instantly because of scheme and then you could tell at the Senior Bowl he was gonna struggle with feints and leverage. 

With a change of a quick game gap scheme I'm all for Dawand Jones in Stripes if he can get his momentum moving back the other direction quick enough to recover against a feint.

[XenoMorph]

What round do you think we will be looking to add OL in? 2-3?

https://walterfootball.com/draft2023OT.php

Jaxon Kirkland, OT/G, Washington ? might be there in rounds 2 or 3 Or later considering we get the 3 we signed back and the Backups have performed better. (so we looking for a starter or depth?)

(for a RT prospect)

[Whatever]

(01-27-2023, 02:03 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Isn't he fighting through injury every year? He has had 3 knee injuries in the last 3 years. He has also given up 20 sacks over the last 2 years.

You don't pay a guy $12.6m if you're even considering putting him into a starting job competition. If he loses then you're either starting him anyway over a guy that beat him because you're paying him too much money to bench, or you're having a $12.6m player sitting on your bench. It's a lose-lose. As soon as you even consider putting him in a competition for his job, it's already telling you that you shouldn't pay him $12.6m.

If we were cap strapped, I could see it, but we have the 5th most cap space in the league heading into next year.  QB contracts typically don't start kicking in for a few years and we don't have a lot of big money FA's to resign or glaring immediate needs besides TE.  

It's not a good FA or T class from what I've seen.  I don't particularly want to cut a guy just to be forced to draft a guy at his position early in a weak class, especially drafting at the end of the round with no extra picks. With the patchwork lines we've trotted out the last two years for the playoffs, I'd much rather keep a guy like Jonah around another year.

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(01-27-2023, 05:29 PM)Whatever Wrote: If we were cap strapped, I could see it, but we have the 5th most cap space in the league heading into next year.  QB contracts typically don't start kicking in for a few years and we don't have a lot of big money FA's to resign or glaring immediate needs besides TE.  

It's not a good FA or T class from what I've seen.  I don't particularly want to cut a guy just to be forced to draft a guy at his position early in a weak class, especially drafting at the end of the round with no extra picks. With the patchwork lines we've trotted out the last two years for the playoffs, I'd much rather keep a guy like Jonah around another year.

Burrow, Wilson, and Higgins are eligible for extensions.
Bell, Pratt, and Hurst are all FAs.

Even if you don't extend Higgins and don't re-sign Pratt (my expectations) that cap space will still start shrinking quick. Plus they need to find another CB or re-sign Apple (ugh).

How is paying a guy $12.6m to either do a bad job or potentially sit on the bench better than trying to find his replacement and using $12.6m in cap space to improve the team? Again, 20 sacks allowed the last two years. Without him the Bengals 29th ranked run offense ran straight down the throat of the Bills 5th ranked rushing defense while Burrow tied his lowest sack total of any game this year.

Not to mention even if Jonah does play okay, there's a pretty good chance with him that you still are forced to put together a patchwork line out there because he's always hurt. He just dislocated knees twice in one year, he has finished 3 of his 4 seasons injured.

[bk42]

Do you think extensions for Burrow, Higgins and Wilson will impact the Bengals salary cap next season? They are all under contract for next season already. I don't know enough about how it works but this off season (free agents and salary cap space) doesn't look nearly as bad as what the following year could look like.

[Whatever]

(01-27-2023, 06:30 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Burrow, Wilson, and Higgins are eligible for extensions.
Bell, Pratt, and Hurst are all FAs.

Even if you don't extend Higgins and don't re-sign Pratt (my expectations) that cap space will still start shrinking quick. Plus they need to find another CB or re-sign Apple (ugh).

How is paying a guy $12.6m to either do a bad job or potentially sit on the bench better than trying to find his replacement and using $12.6m in cap space to improve the team? Again, 20 sacks allowed the last two years. Without him the Bengals 29th ranked run offense ran straight down the throat of the Bills 5th ranked rushing defense while Burrow tied his lowest sack total of any game this year.

Not to mention even if Jonah does play okay, there's a pretty good chance with him that you still are forced to put together a patchwork line out there because he's always hurt. He just dislocated knees twice in one year, he has finished 3 of his 4 seasons injured.

20 sacks is highly inflated by Burrow's style of play over the past couple of years.  A lot of the recent success in pass pro is Joe getting the ball out quicker.  And the Bills D always crumbles in the playoffs.  Case in point, 13 seconds or a 3rd string QB hanging 30+ on them.  I'm glad Carman has played well the last couple of weeks, but he has also given up sacks, too.  I'm not ready to hand him the starting job without serious competition.  And point blank, I have zero faith on our FO hitting on a T in this class.  I'm not going to get behind a plan that has this FO with it's track record of drafting OL voluntarily putting themselves in a position where they have to spend an early pick on a T in this class, especially when you're pulling the 5th year option on a T that would start for a lot of teams in the league, including ours 

If you're looking to dump someone for cap space, it should be Boyd before anyone else.  He has a 4th year PS guy eating into his reps and targets and we can actually draft WR's well.  Cap space can be created with structure on extensions for guys like Reader and Trey.  

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(01-28-2023, 03:35 AM)Whatever Wrote: 20 sacks is highly inflated by Burrow's style of play over the past couple of years.  A lot of the recent success in pass pro is Joe getting the ball out quicker.  And the Bills D always crumbles in the playoffs.  Case in point, 13 seconds or a 3rd string QB hanging 30+ on them.  I'm glad Carman has played well the last couple of weeks, but he has also given up sacks, too.  I'm not ready to hand him the starting job without serious competition.  And point blank, I have zero faith on our FO hitting on a T in this class.  I'm not going to get behind a plan that has this FO with it's track record of drafting OL voluntarily putting themselves in a position where they have to spend an early pick on a T in this class, especially when you're pulling the 5th year option on a T that would start for a lot of teams in the league, including ours 

If you're looking to dump someone for cap space, it should be Boyd before anyone else.  He has a 4th year PS guy eating into his reps and targets and we can actually draft WR's well.  Cap space can be created with structure on extensions for guys like Reader and Trey.  

Highly inflated for the LT alone? Because no other position on the line comes close to that 20 number. It's hard for anyone they draft to be worse than that, he literally led the league in sacks allowed while the run game also looked terrible. Now you want to give him a $7m raise. Let some other team start him, because then Hendrickson or Hubbard will be given a free 3 sack game when we play him.

Even if they don't get rid of him, the FO has to draft an OT in 2024. You're just pushing the need a year in the future while giving yourself worse play in the present. The FO is going to have to draft OL. That's the reality of football. Honestly they might still need to draft an OL in 2023, because La'el Collins isn't the answer either with iffy play and an even more iffy back.

That's literally not true. Boyd played 5% less snaps this year than last, and all of that is from the Week 14 game where he played 2 snaps before his finger got a compound dislocation. He plays his normal amount in that game and he's directly on the exact same snap % as last year. The RBs are the ones cutting into targets, as both Mixon and Perine set career high in targets this year, each by 20 more targets than their previous career high.... Probably because Jonah led the league in sacks, so Burrow has to dump it off to the RBs more.

Yes, cap space can be created with structure or extensions, but that tactic comes with one drawback that is a huge drawback for the Bengals. It's reliant on guaranteed money and signing bonuses. All of which means liquid cash needs to be either paid or put into escrow up front. On top of the $150-200m that's going to have to be paid/put into escrow for Burrow, the $70-100m that will need to be paid/put into escrow in 2024 for Chase, and then anyone else's contracts on top of that. Paying and moving hundreds of millions in liquid funds is the FO's biggest weakness when it comes to being able to being able to truly play around with the cap fully like some other teams are doing successfully.

[Whatever]

(01-28-2023, 12:44 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Highly inflated for the LT alone? Because no other position on the line comes close to that 20 number. It's hard for anyone they draft to be worse than that, he literally led the league in sacks allowed while the run game also looked terrible. Now you want to give him a $7m raise. Let some other team start him, because then Hendrickson or Hubbard will be given a free 3 sack game when we play him.

Even if they don't get rid of him, the FO has to draft an OT in 2024. You're just pushing the need a year in the future while giving yourself worse play in the present. The FO is going to have to draft OL. That's the reality of football. Honestly they might still need to draft an OL in 2023, because La'el Collins isn't the answer either with iffy play and an even more iffy back.

That's literally not true. Boyd played 5% less snaps this year than last, and all of that is from the Week 14 game where he played 2 snaps before his finger got a compound dislocation. He plays his normal amount in that game and he's directly on the exact same snap % as last year. The RBs are the ones cutting into targets, as both Mixon and Perine set career high in targets this year, each by 20 more targets than their previous career high.... Probably because Jonah led the league in sacks, so Burrow has to dump it off to the RBs more.

Yes, cap space can be created with structure or extensions, but that tactic comes with one drawback that is a huge drawback for the Bengals. It's reliant on guaranteed money and signing bonuses. All of which means liquid cash needs to be either paid or put into escrow up front. On top of the $150-200m that's going to have to be paid/put into escrow for Burrow, the $70-100m that will need to be paid/put into escrow in 2024 for Chase, and then anyone else's contracts on top of that. Paying and moving hundreds of millions in liquid funds is the FO's biggest weakness when it comes to being able to being able to truly play around with the cap fully like some other teams are doing successfully.

You're using a 2 year number and Jonah is the only incumbent starter from last year.  Different positions typically allow more or less sacks.  Volson has the 5th most sacks allowed among G's.  Playing next to a rookie G who has struggled in pass pro is going to hurt you.  Collins has allowed the 25th most sacks among T's and Cappa the 24th most among G's.  The only one that is in the top half of his position is Karras, and that's barely at 17th out of 32.

If you let him play out his contract, you can draft a T in '23 if there's a guy you're sold on and there's a value, you can sign a vet in '24 when there should be a better FA class, or you can draft a guy in '24 where there should be a better T class.  You also get a comp pick for him when he leaves and you're going to need cheap depth when you start inking all these extensions.  

I seriously don't get the yearly obsession with drafting OL high.  It's extremely hard to develop OL in practice because you have a very limited number of padded practices to do so.  You have to let guys play to develop, and the second a guy struggles, everyone gives up on them and says we need to draft OL high again.  OL isn't a position where you rotate guys, so unless you're going to start them, stick with them, and let them struggle, they are going to develop very slowly.  I've said it last year and I'll say it again this year.  We need to spend our draft picks on position groups where we have shown the ability to get immediate contributes and our cap dollars on position groups where we can't.

Boyd's snaps have declined since the season started.  He played 80+% of the offensive snaps in 4 of the first 6 games and has only done so once in the last 6 games.   He completely disappeared when Chase was out.  And we do a much better job of drafting WR than OL.  

The Bengals have made a number of guys the highest paid players at their positions through the years without needing to drop the axe on guys for more cap space.  

[*Synric*]

Could watch Darnell Wright (58) v Bama all day long.

One of my favorite OTs in the class. pic.twitter.com/8DE1bkZsGZ

— Ryan Fowler (@_RyanFowler_) January 23, 2023

[*Synric*]

Bump.

Guard might not be high on the list but there are some really good IOL that could be had early. John Michael Schmitz looked great at the Senior Bowl and was coaching guys when he wasn't taking reps. Dude is an instant leader.

[*psychdoctor*]

(02-04-2023, 12:05 PM)Synric Wrote: Bump.

Guard might not be high on the list but there are some really good IOL that could be had early. John Michael Schmitz looked great at the Senior Bowl and was coaching guys when he wasn't taking reps. Dude is an instant leader.

Is he first round material? I sort of think he may be for the Bengals. 

[*bfine32*]

(02-04-2023, 12:05 PM)Synric Wrote: Bump.

Guard might not be high on the list but there are some really good IOL that could be had early. John Michael Schmitz looked great at the Senior Bowl and was coaching guys when he wasn't taking reps. Dude is an instant leader.

I listened to the Senior Bowl on Sirius because I love to get Pat Kirwan's opinion. 

Coming in O'Cyrus Torrence was at the top of my IOL list. PK's thoughts: He can be dominant but h finds himself on the ground too much for my liking.

He loved Schmitz, said he's a strong people mover with some nastiness to him. No word on if he eats glass.

[casear2727]

(01-26-2023, 09:30 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Only thing I will say is if Jonah Williams can pass a physical before March 15th, he can be cut with zero dead cap. Until March 15th, Jonah's 5th year option is guaranteed for injury only. It's only once he's on the roster on the first day of the new league year that it becomes fully guaranteed.

99% sure on this.

Not anymore, this was changed back in the 2020 CBA.  Jonah is fully guaranteed.

[TecmoBengals]

Schmitz, the C from Minnesota is getting a lot of hype after the Sr. Bowl.

I'm not suggesting we draft him since we have Karras at the position but is it possible the Bengals could take Schmitz or any center and then slide Karras elsewhere on the line?

Would it be a good way to improve the OL? I have no idea and I'm curious as to what others think.

[WVUHomer]

(02-06-2023, 09:58 AM)TecmoBengals Wrote: Schmitz, the C from Minnesota is getting a lot of hype after the Sr. Bowl.

I'm not suggesting we draft him since we have Karras at the position but is it possible the Bengals could take Schmitz or any center and then slide Karras elsewhere on the line?

Would it be a good way to improve the OL? I have no idea and I'm curious as to what others think.

Unless I'm reading his tweets incorrectly, Goodberry seems to be of the thought that you draft a top tier IOL and put Volson as first OG onto the field.

I don't agree with it but I'm not him. I think you give Volson more time to develop.

[casear2727]

(01-27-2023, 07:29 PM)bk42 Wrote: Do you think extensions for Burrow, Higgins and Wilson will impact the Bengals salary cap next season?  They are all under contract for next season already.  I don't know enough about how it works but this off season (free agents and salary cap space) doesn't look nearly as bad as what the following year could look like.

The only impact these 3 being extended will have on the cap next season will be their 1st prorated payment of their signing bonuses, nothing else will change.

[Essex Johnson]

I am not in the camp of drafting a tackle 1st round, mainly since rookies are still a guessing game as a whole in the NFL and development at tackle tends to be slower than other positions, with the window we have with these core, I prefer to go FA with tackle since there is tape at NFL level and already developed.

If we don't acquire a tackle, then I understand better using 1st round for a tackle.

In the end our 1st round pick will be impacted by signing our FAS and what Free agents we might acquire before draft.

[BoomerFan]

If Broderick Jones is available in the first, do you consider taking him? He is primarily an LT I believe and we really need RT but I think I'd strongly lean towards doing so.

I would also grab Fred Johnson off of Phillies practice squad and let him compete for the backup job at RT.

[SunsetBengal]

(02-07-2023, 02:41 PM)BoomerFan Wrote: If Broderick Jones is available in the first, do you consider taking him? He is primarily an LT I believe and we really need RT but I think I'd strongly lean towards doing so.

I would also grab Fred Johnson off of Phillies practice squad and let him compete for the backup job at RT.

Not a huge fan of Fred Johnson as a starter, but he likely would have been better out at RT than Adeniji.

[SunsetBengal]

Anyone familiar with Pac-12 football? Seems the Bengals met with Oregon St. RT Brandon Kipper today.

https://bengalswire.usatoday.com/2023/02/07/bengals-oregon-state-brandon-kipper-2023-nfl-draft/

Quote:As expected, the Cincinnati Bengals have eyes on offensive line talent ahead of the 2023 NFL draft.

According to The Draft Network’s Justin Melo, the Bengals used The NFLPA Collegiate Bowl to meet with Oregon State offensive lineman Brandon Kipper.

Kipper is right in line with what the Bengals love to add to their program. He’s an experienced redshirt senior from a bigger school who is extremely versatile having played right tackle and right guard for much of his career.

While Kipper probably isn’t going to go in the early rounds, he’s right in line with what most expected for the Bengals in the upcoming draft. They need better depth behind Alex Cappa at right guard after Max Scharping’s brutal playoff showing and a potential outright replacement for La’el Collins at right tackle, never mind better depth.

In other words, keep an eye on Kipper and prospects just like him during the draft process.