Chase v Sewell

[Whatever]

(04-24-2021, 02:54 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: I disagree for one reason: 
If we took Chase, we HAVE to take an Olinemen in the 2nd round

If we took Sewell, we don't HAVE to take an X WR in the 2nd round. 

It would certainly be ideal, as that is our 2nd biggest need, and we should target the position as a priority, but there is no imminent danger if we do not.

And that's how I draw the line between these two positions. OL we capital letters NEED. WR we should draft if we want to increase our offensive efficiency.

If we don't get a good day 1 starting Olineman in this draft, Burrow's reconstructed knee and possibly his career will be in jeopardy. This is not fear mongering or scare tactics, it's just the reality of not putting a starting quality line in front of him. Maybe he doesn't get injured with a terrible line in 2021. We would hope he doesn't. But a worse Oline makes that threat more possible and it would definitely increase the number of hits he takes.

If we don't get a good day 1 starting X receiver in this draft, Burrow will just have to make due with what we have which, for the record, resulted in 282 passing yards per game, 22.4 ppg and a 65.3% completion percentage over the 9.5 games that he played as a rookie. And that includes the bad outings he had against Pittsburgh and Baltimore.

And he did this all with a terrible Oline (he was sacked 32 times), a defense that couldn't keep a lead and a virtually non-existent running game.

Unless, of course, you believe that losing AJ Green will severely hamper Burrow, which I find hard to believe since Green performed worse than a replacement player in 2020. 

Adding any weapons to this offense will make it MORE explosive, and that's obviously the goal and would be great, but it won't ruin his progress as a player and it won't jeopardize his future and the franchise's future if we don't add a #1 WR to this offense.

Not fixing the Oline will risk those things.

Add onto that the fact that there are more starting level WRs from outside of the first round than there are offensive tackles and you have a really solid argument for going Sewell, with a bit harder sell for Chase.

As far as teams knowing our needs but not necessarily who we covet, maybe they don't know exactly who we're targetting, but a team can look at who is available at 35 and say "okay, there are 2 more offensive linemen we consider day 1 starters at guard on the board. We know that the Bengals are going to take 1 of them at 38. I want my choice of the two because I don't want to risk the Bengals taking my preferred player, so I will trade to 37 just so I have my choice of the two."

Like I said, it's happened at least 3 times in the past 3 drafts.

Plus, and this is a lesser issue overall, but I REALLY don't trust Duke Tobin's ability to evaluate Oline talent in recent years. He is the one who traded up for Michael Jordan, he drafted Ogbuehi, Fisher, Price and Bodine. The only offensive lineman he's drafted who many would consider a success in the past 10 years was Kevin Zeitler. The jury is still out on Williams, but he looks pretty good, assuming he can stay healthy.
So I'd really prefer we nab the more "secure" prospect in Sewell and then start digging through the WRs in the 2nd and 3rd rounds, as Duke has a much better track record with WRs in that draft range (Tyler Boyd, Tee Higgins, Chris Henry, Jerome Simpson, Andre Caldwell, Mohamed Sanu).

That's anecdotal evidence and is kind of secondary to my main argument, but I think it's worth noting.

The Bengals NEED an X WR.  This offense doesn't function without one, as we've seen for the last two years.  Burrow had a lot of passing yards per game because we threw a lot, but he was 24th in passer rating and 25th in yards/attempt.  He had the 5th lowest expected completion % last year and threw the 3rd highest % of passes to targets with a defender within a yard of them.  His pressure/dropback % was 13th highest in the league, not good, but nowhere near as bad some think.  Out the48 sacks the Bengals gave up last year, 23 were credited to the OL. Are we just going to ignore the other 25 or seek to address them?

I respect you, but honestly, this does come off as fear mongering.  Penei Sewell does not guarantee Burrow's health next year.  Carson Palmer and Tom Brady had similar injuries behind good lines.  There's also a bunch of guys that got hit more than Burrow that didn't miss time and a bunch of guys that got hit less that did.  Folks constantly laud Pittsburgh's OL, yet Ben is always banged up.  And what's strange, injuries like Joe, Carson, and Brady had where a guy falls into the side of their plant leg almost always come up the middle, but we're going to draft Sewell and put him at RT and it will somehow prevent it from happening again.

There are 13 OL in the Top 50 prospects of this draft.  If we get jumped for an OL, there are still a bunch of other OL options.  If we get jumped for an X WR, we don't have options except try to trade back or go with another position group.  

 I really don't understand "Sewell should be the pick because I don't trust Duke Tobin" logic.  We have no control over what the Bengals would do.  We are talking about what we would hypothetically do.  Personally, I am a lot more confident that I could find a quality starting G on Day 2 than an X WR.  If Mike Brown isn't confident Tobin can do that in this stacked of a class, then he should fire him.