Try to sell me on O.J. Howard.

[*ochocincos*]

(04-03-2017, 11:39 AM)Au165 Wrote: Every year we pretend like the guys in the mid rounds can't touch the guys in the first round and every year we see that there are mid round guys as good as the first round guys.

Here are some examples specific to TE that are related to Bengals first round TE picks.

We took Gresham in 2010 and Gronk, Graham, Hernandez, and Pitta all were drafted after. You could make an argument talent wise all were as good if not better than Gresham.

We take Eiffert in the 1st in 2013 and Ertz, Kelce, Reed are all drafted after.

We as fans always fall for this narrative that these first round guys are far and away better than the other guys. The reality is the draft is an inexact science and believing one guy is simply far and away better is fool's gold.

The reality is if you take Hodges, Engram, Leggett, etc, you're going to have to spend a good amount of time improving their blocking. That means they will likely only be able to be used as a big WR out of the gate. That will mean more limited usage. To become a good TE and be used often with the Bengals, they will need to block well. We saw that happen with Chase Coffman. While he was supposed to be an extremely prolific receiver, he was terrible at blocking, and therefore was never put on the field. So while a 3rd rounder could become as good or better than a 1st rounder, they likely won't be so in their first couple years, at least in the Bengals scheme where they expect their TEs to block well.