Chase v Sewell

[CJD]

(04-24-2021, 08:14 PM)Whatever Wrote: 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.  

If my post was fear mongering, then I don't think it's possible to advocate for drafting Sewell without fear mongering. I did my absolute best to not exaggerate the dangers or say anything like "If we don't take Sewell, Burrow dies!" I just made my best attempt at explaining why Oline should be our priority because of the objective reality that a worse oline = more hits on Burrow and more hits on Burrow = more chances he gets injured. And we currently have a really bad Oline. Sewell doesn't guarantee Burrow's health (nothing can), but he does increase the chances that Burrow is not injured, as any good olineman would. Signing Reiff decreased the chance of Burrow getting injured as well. The problem is we just didn't do enough on the interior and, as you pointed out, that was where Burrow's injury came from. If we draft Sewell, we can move him in to RG or we can move Reiff in to Right Guard and upgrade both positions significantly from last year. And, if Jonah Williams does get injured for the third year in a row, we have someone to plug into the most important position on the Oline without having to rely on getting several hundreds of good snaps out of Hakeem Adeniji and Fred Johnson.

How many OL are in the top 50 prospects varies from analyst to analyst and differs even more from how teams feel. Dane Brugler, for example, only has 10 Olinemen in the top 50:
Sewell, Slater, Vera-Tucker, Darrisaw, Dickerson, Jenkins, Leatherwood, Cosmi, Humphrey and Eichenburg.

If we could guarantee that one of those guys was available at 38, I'd be comfortable with taking Chase. Problem is there are a lot of teams at the backend of the first round that are projected to need offensive linemen. Baltimore just traded Brown, Pittsburgh's center retired, KC still probably needs 1 more tackle, Indy, Jacksonville, Green Bay, Las Vegas, Seattle, Tennessee, Minnesota and Washington all have legitimate needs along the Oline and I've seen offensive linemen mocked to them consistently across mock drafts. All those teams would need to do is either take an offensive lineman with their first pick or recognize that they need to trade in front of us to get one of these 10 guys and we could be stuck reaching for a Radunz or Meinerz who may not be ready to start year 1...

I know that taking Chase is the sexy pick and I know it's a story book ending to have Burrow throwing to Chase for the next 5 to 10 years, but I'd be much more comfortable and confident in the future potential of our team (since no one really expects us to go to the playoffs in 2021 anyway) to lock down the Oline and then address the weapons in 2022. Doing it that way hurts our offensive production, but it doesn't risk the future of the franchise. Flipping it and prioritizing weapons now and Oline later may make our offense more explosive in a year that we aren't expected to compete (although, for all we know, an improved Oline means a better running game which will open up the passing game as well anyway), but it adds risk to the equation with a QB who notoriously does not give up on plays even when he should (which leads to more sacks than he needs to take, as your statistic about 25 sacks would indicate) and is coming off of a major injury. I say mitigate the risk and play it conservative, for the sake of the future.

The Tobin can't evaluate Olinemen thing is more a fan concern than a team concern. Which is meaningless since we have absolutely no input into who the team drafts. It would just set my mind at ease if we took Sewell because of that pattern of terrible Oline choices in the past. That's why it was more of a side note than an actual argument .

For decades, the general idea behind building a team was from the lines out. Good Olines make the entire offense better and good Dlines make the entire defense better. It's been this way since the beginning of the game. Skill position players are always incredible and definitely add to the team, but I don't believe a team with the best weapons in the game could win without a good Oline. Until we have one of those, I don't think we have a chance at succeeding. Start with Sewell and build out from there.