01-17-2019, 07:43 PM
(01-17-2019, 06:34 PM)BengalChris Wrote: I'd want drafted rookies contributing in year one regardless. Otherwise you are leaving someone off your 53 man roster who can help you win this year.
Practice squad is the place for projects, not the 53 man roster. Why draft someone who needs to be on the practice squad where he can be picked up by someone else.
You can't put them on the practice squad because some other team will carry them on their 53 man roster while he develops.
EVERY player comes out of college as an unfinished product. The ones who might seem most ready to contribute as rookies may not be the best players. Instead they might just be the ones who had the best coaches and played against the toughest levels of college competition. After just one or two seasons with equal coaching, training, and competition the best players will surpass the "ready" players and have better careers. A good example of this is the Chiefs Cris Jones. Jones never had more than 3 sacks in a season in college, but he was taken with the 5th pick of 2nd round because of his size and potential. His rookie season there were 24 other rookies who had as many sacks as Jones's 2. But Jones more than tripled that number his second season (6.5) then more than doubled that this year when he finished 3rd in the league with 15.5. Meanwhile there are a ton of guys out there who contributed more as rookies than Jones, but are still just average players.
(01-17-2019, 06:34 PM)BengalChris Wrote: NFL.com was wrong about Hunt, so were the Bengals.
NFL.com was NOT wrong about Hunt. They labeled him as an "eventual starter". He started for the Colts this year and only 12 other NFL D-linemen had more Tackles For Loss than Hunt's 13. He was no big star, but he played 75% of the snaps for the league's 8th ranked rush defense registering 30 tackles and 5 sacks.
