The Truth We All Ignore: Mike Brown

[*ochocincos*]

(01-07-2025, 10:26 AM)Wyche Wrote: Not being a contrarian, who would you consider those picks to be?

I had liked John Ross, Jackson Carman, Dax Hill (specifically at safety), and even Zach Carter.

John Ross I thought though needed to be used much more on short routes, as his college tape showed his best skill set was getting YAC.

Carman I thought was a good fit to be the starting LG in 2022 after seeing him play solid in limited snaps in the previous (post)season, but Pollack/Taylor decided to give the job to rookie Volson instead. I have to wonder if losing out on that starting LG spot in 2022 resulted in some lack of effort for him after.

Hill I think had the makings of being a really good FS. He had the range and talent to succeed at the spot, he just was more familiar playing CB and SS from college.
With how poor Stone ended up performing most of the year at FS as well, I have to wonder if it would have been better just keeping Hill at that spot to continue learning on the job.

And for Carter, his best spot may have ended up being 3-4 DE based on his size and length, but I thought he was a good pass rusher coming out of college.
He was kind of a tweener and was moved around different spots during games in college to take advantage of matchups.
Bengals never seemed to really move guys around to different spots, and I think Carter just was never able to handle full-time DT against those bigger, more powerful guys inside.
Anarumo's pass rush schemes are pretty bland for the DL, relying heavily on each individual being able to beat his man ahead of him.

When looking at all these guys though, they all needed some amount of coaching to refine their skill sets (and/or have the scheme tweaked to take advantage of their talents better), which didn't seem to happen. I'm sure some of it is on the player, but some of it might be on the coaching too.