12-20-2017, 10:04 AM
(12-20-2017, 09:53 AM)bengal kitten uk Wrote: If we go QB, maybe we have another bad season, but we could have our guy for the 14 seasons after that. Fix the line in FA, the 2nd and 3rd rounds and we can still have the pieces in place to support a new QB.
How often has Mike Brown taken an offensive lineman with a top 10 pick? I can't imagine it happens very often. Now granted, the Bengals could always trade down in the first round for more picks, but why use a first round pick on a lineman if you're just going to let the guy walk after five years anyway. I know the draft is a crapshoot, but use the first round pick on a guy you'd actually want to keep around should he live up to expectations. Using first round picks on a five-year rental is doing us no favors in the long run.
You can find linemen in the mid-late rounds that can be developed into quality starters. You can find guys in free agency. The future of this team doesn't hinge upon them taking a guard or a center in the top 10 of the draft. A lot of our issues stem from the current coaching staff's inability to draft players that fit our schemes and developing them accordingly. That could easily change if we see a substantial house-cleaning this off-season.
You've got a top 10 pick in a QB-deep draft. You've got a new coaching regime coming in. Andy Dalton's only got a couple of years left on his contract. You only have so many years of AJ Green's prime left. If you think there's a guy in this draft class that could be the team's future, I think you have to take him. Even if you sit him behind Dalton for a year or two. Because you're right. We don't know what the QB draft class is going to look like in 2-3 years. And if Dalton is the kind of guy that would let drafting a QB shatter his confidence (as this article implies), then he's not the guy anyway.
Everything in this post is my fault.
