Injuries and high draft picks

[BengalChris]

(06-05-2020, 12:31 AM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Problem is, some.of them had known injuries and we still took them. Thats on the Bengals, the ones that didn't have those issues is just football. Also, I thought it was known ahead of time about Thurmans drinking problem to some teams? If that was true, then again its on us not sending our scouts out to look into those character issues with players. At times back then, I think we relied on other peoples scouting reports instead of doing the leg work ourself.

(06-05-2020, 12:54 AM)fredtoast Wrote: Lots of high picks have injury issues.  Just look at the year we took Ross at #9.  Three of the guys taken before him had serious injury issues (Myles Garrett, Christian McCaffrey, Leonard Fournette).

I don't think the Bengals draft any more injured players than other teams on average.  And the guy we drafted with the worst injury record in college ended up being pretty durable.  Johnathan Joseph missed 8 games in his third season, but he only missed 5 over his other 4 seasons here.

Yes, the Bengals have had more than their share of injuries from high picks.

But it wasn't just Ross who was drafted with existing injuries. Ogbuehi was drafted while recovering from an ACL, Price was drafted after tearing a muscle at the combine. Jonah Williams likely already had the shoulder injury at Alabama. The first three of those guys turned out to be bad picks and failed to reach anything close to the potential you would expect from their draft position. We'll have to wait and see about Jonah.

Personally I don't believe the team should take any player with substantial injuries in the first round. Sure that might eliminate some talent, but at least you'll have a much better chance of the guy reaching his potential more quickly. Some injured guys never seem to really arrive.

As for Ross, he didn't miss all of those 13 games his rookie season because of injuries. He was a healthy inactive for several games due to ineptness in practice. But in any case, he had a sizeable injury history and pulled a hammy at the combine, something he continues to do, he's only played in one pre-season out of three.