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(08-30-2023, 02:05 PM)Bengalion Wrote: The 2015 class was the worst I've ever seen:
- Round 1, pick No. 21: Cedric Ogbuehi, OL, Texas A&M -> Complete bustRound 2, pick No. 53: Jake Fisher, OL, Oregon -> BustRound 3, pick No. 85: Tyler Kroft, TE, Rutgers -> Didn't work for us, had a decent couple of years in BuffaloRound 3, pick No. 99: Paul Dawson, LB, TCU -> BustRound 4, pick No. 120: Josh Shaw, DB, USC -> BustRound 4, pick No. 135: Marcus Hardison, DL, Arizona State ->BustRound 5, pick No. 157, C.J. Uzomah, TE, Auburn -> the best pick of this class. A great leader, but Uzomah was just an average player for us.Round 6, pick No. 197, Derron Smith, DB, Fresno State -> BustRound 7, pick No. 238, Mario Alford, WR, West Virginia -> Bust
This one might take the cake of the last 10 years, but there were some other close ones.
2018 - Bates and Hubbard were the lone saviors of this otherwise disastrous draft.
2017 - Mixon and Elliott the only good players, Lawson was solid. Lawson has had injuries hold him back, and Bengals cut Elliott in favor of Bullock, so he doesn't even really count.
2016 - WJ3 was good for the Bengals but not good after he left. Boyd the only guy that has stuck around and still good.
2014 - Ok this might be the worst. Dennard never really established himself as a starter, Hill fell off after a couple years, and the rest all fell out of the league quickly.
Damn, when we put all these sequential drafts in order from 2014-2018, it's no wonder Marvin's teams fell off so hard after that 2015 core of guys started leaving. Back-to-back-to-back bad drafts.
Zac Taylor 2019-2020: 6 total wins
Zac Taylor 2021-2022: Double-digit wins each season, plus 5 postseason wins
Zac Taylor 2023: 9 wins despite losing Burrow half the season
Zac Taylor 2024: Started 1-4. If he can turn this into a playoff appearance, it will be impressive.
Sorry for Party Rocking!
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(08-30-2023, 02:11 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Outside of taking a Chain-Smoking TE in the 3rd
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(08-29-2023, 09:38 PM)pally Wrote: The drafts over Zac's tenure have been crazy good overall
2020
5 still with the team, 2 in limbo
3 stars-Burrow, Higgins, Wilson
2-solid contributors-Gaither-Davis, Bailey
2-Contributors Adeniji and Kareem (both were waived today, both likely to land on their team's PS)
2021
8 out of 10 are still with the team
2 stars- Chase and McPherson
6 second stringers-Carman, Ossai, Sample, Smith, Hill, Evans
2 busts-Shelvin, Hubert
2022
5 out 6 still on 53
3 starters- Volson, Hill, Taylor-Britt
2-will be main contributors-Anderson, Carter
1-will be on PS and contributed last season-Gunter
2023
All picks made the team
over 4 years 31 picks and 26 are still on the team an 83.8% rate. 2 will likely be on our PS and 1 other on another team's.
Overall that is a pretty darn good success rate in the NFL. Shoot, it wasn't that long ago that entire draft classes were out of the league in 4 years
Position depth isn't a good metric when evaluating how good a player is. We still don't know if 75% of these guys drafted over the past few years are any good or not. The core and best players on this team were layup picks (Burrow, Chase) and free agents (Hilton, Reader, Awuzie, Orlando, Karras, Cappa).
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They deserve a lot of credit with how far we have come. Ownership, coaches & players.
Now get this team over the hump.
In my lifetime. Please...
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I also want to give great credit to whoever convinced Jonah Williams to stay in Cincinnati and move to right tackle so Orlando Brown could play left tackle. What Jonah agreed to was essentially a very selfless team-first move.
As I see it the conversation might have hinged upon a quote like this: “Jonah, do you want to test the waters and see if another less capable team will try to match or exceed your salary at left tackle or would you rather play right tackle on a team with a realistic shot to win it all?”
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(08-29-2023, 10:10 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: So what is your measurement? I agree with Pally, having 8 draft picks make a team that went 12-4 and lost in the AFC Championship has to be figured into the equation in my humble opinion.
How about performance in actual games?
Making the team isn't really a flex, especially if you're an early round pick. The team drafts you early in the hopes that you replace a vet sooner than later.
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(08-30-2023, 10:52 AM)Mgbrown66 Wrote: What are the best/worst Bengals drafts in history?
2006 was a pretty good draft. You could also chalk 2011 up as another good draft.
You can always trust an dishonest man to be dishonest. Honestly, it's the honest ones you have to look out for.
"Winning makes believers of us all"-Paul Brown
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They keep drafting like this and we will be good for a long time with Burrow. Marv's teams started to really fall apart once
they started drafting poorly specifically in the trenches. Hoping to get better at drafting OL but other than that, Duke, the FO,
the scouts and Zac Taylor, Lou and the coaches have all done a pretty good job.
Also, it might not be the drafting of the OL that has been the problem but Pollack if these guys don't develop. If the O-line
under Pollack is not much better this season with this talent it might be time to add a better OL coach. Expecting Volson to
be much better this season and Carman should be good depth at LT though.
We will see, but great job so far and yes they deserve a shout out.
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(08-30-2023, 06:52 PM)WeezyBengal Wrote: Position depth isn't a good metric when evaluating how good a player is. We still don't know if 75% of these guys drafted over the past few years are any good or not. The core and best players on this team were layup picks (Burrow, Chase) and free agents (Hilton, Reader, Awuzie, Orlando, Karras, Cappa).
Drafted by us: Burrow (1), Mixon (2), Chase (1), Higgins (2), Boyd (2), J. Williams (1), Volson (4); Hubbard (3), Wilson (3), Pratt (3), CTB (2), D. Hill (1); McPherson (5), Robbins (6).
14/25 starters were drafted by us. 7/11 on offense. 5/11 on D. And 2 of 3 of the specialists. If you want to include the returners, both of those (KR: T. Williams/Evans & PR: C. Jones) were drafted as well. 16/27.
FA signings: O. Brown, Cappa, Karras, I. Smith; Hendrickson, Reader, Awuzie, Hilton, Scott; Adomitis. 10/25 (27). 4/11 on O, 5/11 on D, 1/3 (5) on specials.
Trade: BJ Hill (subsequently re-signed).
Bates (drafted) & Bell (FA) obviously big parts of this team as well. As Burrow, Chase, Higgins, Hendrickson, Wilson, & Pratt get paid, we are gonna have to rely on rookies more.
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