It appears ESPN thinks Bengals improved after first wave of FA

[Luvnit2]

(Yesterday, 09:29 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: I am not comparing this offseason to the 2020-2021 offseason. I was pointing out that Atomic using the 2021 season as an example of getting "lucky" was nonsense, because we vastly improved our roster from 2020, which means it's not a matter of luck there. If we had the exact same (or nearly the same) roster in 2021 as we did in 2020 and still went to the SB, THAT would have been lucky, but we didn't, we made significant improvements in order to get those better results.

I agree with you, but Bengals also were a 4 win team in 2020 and a 9 win team in 2024. The 2024 roster was a lot better than the 2020 roster and JB was on a rookie contract as was Chase.

Bengals had Chase and money Mac do great as rookies, but the other 8 picks did not do much of anything. In 2020 we had 7 picks and top 2 did well by year 2. Higgins and Wilson. In 2020 we had 10 picks again. Only Jonah Williams in round 1, Sample in round 2 and Pratt in year 3 were signiifciant contributors by 2021.

The 2021 free agent class + Burrow year 2 and healthy + homeruns with Chase and Mac = Super Bowl. Tee also was better in his year 2.

To be succsessful Bengals need Mims, Jenkins, McKinley, Newton, Johnson and Anthony to improve. Alli is out for year, but if they get anything from Butron and McLachlan this could go down as our best draft class in a very long time.

I would argue Newton, Johnson and eventually Alli can become very good NFL players. The jury is out on Anthony, but he is very athletic abd raw

We need at least 1 more vet guard prior to the draft, if so our options will be open with pick 17 and may give us leeway to trade back in round 1 to grab ore picks.