04-23-2019, 10:18 PM
(04-23-2019, 11:18 AM)PV Bengal Wrote: We will never know if Klingler or A. Smith would have been decent QBs (long term) because they played behind some horrible OLs and those teams had some pretty horrible defenses to boot. Hell, Tom Brady would look like an average QB playing behind the Bengals OL.
Akili's lone year as a starter (2000) he had Willie Anderson, Mike Goff, Matt O'Dwyer, Rich Braham, and Rod Jones as an O-Line. The same O-Line that blocked Corey to 1400+ yds and an at the time single game NFL rushing record against the Broncos (who I believe had the NFL's 2nd best run D going into that game). While O'Dwyer and Jones weren't much to write home about, Willie, Goff, and Braham were all good to great O-Linemen. Akili's sack percentage that year was 11.9% whereas Scott Mitchell (of all people) had a sack percentage of 7.9% behind the same exact O-Line and Mitchell wasn't remotely mobile. Akili got himself sacked significantly more often by holding on to the ball too long and generally looking like a deer in headlights all the time.
The D was 21st in points allowed and 22nd in yards allowed, not good, but not bottom of the barrel either.
Akili can blame many things on his lack of developing into a good NFL QB, but his O-Line and D aren't among them.
As far as Kiingler's concerned, yes, his O-Line was mostly forgettable. But again, the D in his one year as a full-time starter wasn't nearly as bad as you seem to think it was. The 1993 Bengals D was 20th in points, and 16th in yards, not good at all, but not horrible. The offense meanwhile? 28th in points (dead last), and 27th in yards. The year previous, with Boomer at QB for most of the year? Offensively they were 18th in points, and a still bad 26th in yards, but the D was worse than in 1993 (24th in points, 26th in yards).
1994, when Klingler started 7 games (0-7) and Blake started 9 (3-6):
Klingler had 1327 yds, 6 TD's, 9 INT's.
Blake on the other hand, with the same exact team had 2154 yds, 13 TD's, and 9 INT's.
Blake was an off-the-street 3rd string QB who was picked in the 6th round of the same draft that Klingler was the 6th overall pick, was on his second team, and he did nearly twice as much with the same team as Klingler did. Klingler just was not any good.
The 1994 D was bad at giving up points (26th) but surprisingly middle of the pack in giving up yards (15th), so again, while not a good D, not outright atrocious like say...the 2003 D (Marvin's first year) was 28th in both points and yards, or last year's D (30th in points, 32nd (dead last) in yards.
