Tough Sledding for Al Golden

[CJD]

(02-18-2025, 07:39 PM)007BengalsFan Wrote: The Bengals let talent leave from the defense instead of paying them, then draft a bunch of bad to mediocre talent and its Lou's fault they arent better?    Lou should have been able to turn Zach Carter into a good DT?  How did Carter do with the Raiders last year?  He had Patrick Graham as his DC and a bunch of people wanted Graham as the DC instead of Golden so why didnt Graham do anything with Carter if Graham was such a good DC as some have claimed? 

The Bengals let Bates go so they drafted Dax Hill with the intention of him taking over for Bates.  Lou gave him a chance at safety and he was horrible which is why he was moved to cornerback.  If Hill is this great talented player Lou should have developed I guess we can move him back to safety now that Golden is here?  I think most people that saw Hill play safety would agree the move to cornerback was the right decision

Myles Murphy was never an elite pass rusher in college and even when he was drafted people were questioning the pick but Lou is to fault for Murphy not being good?  Murphy was always a big gamble with the 1st round draft pick.  I wouldnt expect him to turn into Aiden Hutchinson just because Golden is now the DC.

I could list issues with most of the rest of the picks but the overall talent we have on defense is mediocre withe exception of Hendrickson.  I do think the defense will be better this year because these guys have some more experience and should be healthy but I wouldnt expect anything more than a mediocre defense if they dont add some quality free agents.  Lou should not be blamed for the lack of talent he had to work with and neither should Golden.  Golden does not have a ton of talent to work with at this moment.  I do think it could be tough sledding for Golden this year.

The expectation is that highly drafted players play well, yes. You can say it's all the front office's fault for drafting bad players, but very few of those 8 picks were considered "reaches" by consensus media boards. So either the entire NFL scouting world was wrong 8 times in a row for the Bengals' picks or Lou did not develop them.

I wanted us to keep Bates and Reader too. But the defense should not have bottomed out the way it did with the amount of draft capital invested into it.