Wasn't a fan. With draft grades!

[Benton]

(05-01-2017, 10:21 AM)bengals67 Wrote: I have been fuming about management for not firing Marvin, failing to franchise Whit, and keeping Bodine as the starting center. I still disagree on these decisions.

With this background, I think this was a great draft that addresses most of problems during a draft year with weak o lineman available.

Ross will completely unbalance opposing Ds and open things up for AJ and Eifert and other WRs and Gio. Picking Ross does more to protect Dalton than picking a below round/pick level o lineman.

If Pats or Steelers had picked Mixon, ESPN would have said it was brilliant. He may be the best player in the draft. He made a really stupid mistake as an 18 year old. He appears genuinely remorseful . Give the kid a chance.

Mixon runs like Bell. When everyone sings the praises of Big Ben, they ignore how his passing opportunities are enhanced by having a back like Bell to keep the D unbalanced.

Third and fourth round picks were off the charts excellent.

Simmons picked the kicker he wanted. Simmons is one of our best coaches.

The Houston safety could be a huge steal.

The Oklahoma linebacker is great on coverage. All reports say he was one of the best cover LBs in the draft. How many years have we gotten killed by tight ends and backs catching passes?

 The Utah center would have gone in fourth round if he had not been injured. I think he is a better player than many on this board are thinking.

I see a much stronger and nastier defense and a lot of weapons on offense making us far less reliant on AJ.

The ball is n Alexander's court o coach up our two tackles, both of whom were first round level choices.

I am with Bonnie Bengal and much more excited about the coming season

Like I said, I'm not opposed to the Mixon pick. There wasn't a better back that fit our scheme.

I know, everybody is bagging on Hill and Gio. But, I think a lot of that is going to be fixed with Andre coming back.

And I hate to say that, considering how much I've busted on Andre being lazy. But you could tell when he was in and when he wasn't when we tried to run the ball... at least when he felt like it. If he's rotating in this year on running downs, our run game should be better.

The other issue there is the coaching. This is the most stability we've had at RB coach in several years. I think the lack of coaching has shown. Not saying we need a different RB coach, I'm hopeful the consistency there will start paying off, but I do think it's resulted in some less than stellar coaching of Hill. He makes a lot of bad decisions that should be coached out at this point considering he still has the physical tools.

And, like I've said in other threads, our OL should be better this year, just given the experience. It's not like they could get much worse.