First Round Prospects You'd Avoid At All Costs

[CJD]

It's that point of the off season where most fans have their "big boards" for who they want the Bengals to draft in the first round. For most, it is filled with OTs, a hand full of DTs and then a few WRs or CBs, based on who has been taken up to that point.

How about your Big Board of players you'd HATE to see the Bengals draft?

I'll share mine:

Players I'd like to avoid in the first round entirely:
Laiatu Latu
Tyler Guyton
Cooper DeJean
Nate Wiggins

Only draft if you're willing to trade down:
Jared Verse
Jackson Powers Johnson
Graham Barton
Zach Frazier

Latu, to me, just has too many red flags. I'm already pretty low on the idea of drafting a defensive end, but Latu has the added injury risk since he nearly retired due to a neck injury in 2021. He is an older player, so his production may be due to that rather than superior athleticism or talent. He seems like a refined pass rusher with a lower ceiling. We already have a first round DE that we need to cut into the rotation with two heavy lifters in Hendrickson and Hubbard. We don't need another.

Guyton just screams project to me. He is a rare athlete, but as a player he is simply bad. Some reports I've read have said he flashes brilliance, but those flashes are literally 10% of his game. That's way too high risk for me and I doubt he'd be ready to step in at RT if Brown is injured.

DeJean is a supreme athlete with outstanding production. But he is a tweener. Some think he could be a safety. Others think he could stick at CB. And I just simply do not have the tolerance for that. We already have Dax Hill sitting on the fence between CB and S, and he's already been effectively replaced, at least for 2024. We don't need another tweener. With DeJean, there's a chance that his tweener status is purely (and unfairly) due to his race, as there are literally zero white cornerbacks in the NFL right now. But even still, I'd prefer the Bengals not be on the forefront of that experiment, only to have him struggle all season because he really belongs at safety. And then we have an even worse log jam at safety.

Wiggins is a tiny, tiny man. He weighed in as 6'1" 173 lbs at the combine. Considering his weight was his primary concern in the off season, I assume he likely played at an even lower weight (as you would expect he'd try to gain weight before the combine to assuage those concerns). He's an elite athlete with fantastic speed but, Jesus Christ, that weight is insanely low. Emmanuel Forbes Jr was a CB I was interested in last year's draft who was similarly slight, at 6'1", 166 lbs. He struggled tremendously in his first season of the NFL, with bigger WRs bullying him all over the field. He scored a 50.9 grade on PFF. My fear is that Nate Wiggins would struggle similarly. We already have a smaller CB in DJ Turner (5'11" 178 lbs), and experienced similar struggles. I really do not want to do that again.

Verse seems like a great prospect, but we are pretty clogged at DE at the moment. Pass rushers are great, but if you don't have the snaps for them, they can't help your team. I am slightly higher on Verse than I am Latu simply because of athletic ceiling, but I'd still prefer we avoid him unless we trade down and pick up another premium pick in the 2nd or 3rd round. They are both older prospects (23+ years old), so their production is not as valuable as, say, a 21 year old doing the same thing. At least that's what the experts say.

As for Frazier, Barton and JPJ, I wouldn't mind drafting them in the first round, but not at 18. Centers and guards just aren't really worth such a premium pick, especially when these guys are not considered transcendent guard/center prospects. I've heard reports that the NFL is slightly lower than the media on these center/guard prospects and they will likely be early 2nd rounders rather than 1st rounders. It only takes one team that really needs a center to draft one of them in the first, but I'd prefer that team not be us.