I like when the Cincinnati Bengals win football Games

[masterpanthera_t]

(12-28-2020, 07:27 PM)ochocincos Wrote: The ONLY downside is that it affects draft position.
And the fans feel more comfortable in getting good players the earlier the Bengals draft because they've struggled so much with developing talent.

Perhaps the NFL needs to implement a draft lottery system where a worse record only increases the probability of the highest pick, not guarantees it. For NBA, the team with the worst record is guaranteed a Top 5 pick, but not guaranteed the 1st overall.

This may give more incentive to win games and less frustration by the fan base when the team wins games late in the season after already being eliminated from playoffs.

I see the point,  but ultimately,  I don't know if a few spots here and there make as much of an impact as we think. 

I think the problem with the Bengals' drafting is mainly due to their poor FO structure and low number of scouts. That's one reason why even some of the higher picks have been misses. 

This is just an example,  and not a be all and end all, but the Steelers took Polamalu at 16, and the ravens took Ed Reed at 22, I believe. Both are HOFs. But we have certain concepts like 16 might be too early for a safety, etc. percolating in some NFL circles,  and I'm sure the Bengals are not outside of that thinking. Even if they were in the position to do so,  I feel the Bengals would have passed.  I think overall the steelers and ravens draft better than the Bengals simply because their scouting is better, as a general rule.  They seem to do better when when they're drafting at a higher position. Again,  as a general rule. Not saying they don't have busts,  but they seem to get higher value out of more of their picks than the Bengals. Whether it's hitting homeruns like Ogden, Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, Suggs,  Polamalu, Lamar, Roethlisberger , TJ Watt etc., to getting value out of lower round picks like Antonio brown, James harrison and others. 

We can point to guys like Metcalf being drafted by Seattle too. I'm sure there are tons of examples like these if we go back and look at the first four rounds of the past five years or so.

If we fix this part of the organization,  there's no doubt we can compete with these teams for championships in my mind.  Hire a great GM and empower that person. If your first try didn't get you the right person,  try again using sound principles.  Eventually you'll get the right one. Heck, poach one of their highly regarded personnel people if you have to. Then let that person hire scouts.  Then we'll have less misses in the draft and build a better roster on average. Missing out a few slots of draft position won't and shouldn't make a big difference. 

But we all know ultimately what's held the organization back for the last thirty years is lack of innovative thinking and an honest appraisal of weaknesses within,  so that's that,  I guess. 

EDIT:
Also in the NBA, one superstar can have an enormous impact on an organization. Those guys generally aren't found outside the top 10 of a draft and most likely not outside of the top 5. There are exceptions sure, but really very rare. Also the NBA draft is only two rounds. In the NFL, considering the number of rounds and positions, a few spots lower in the draft doesn't affect you as much if your talent evaluation is very good. You can identify good players in the mid rounds and get them fairly easily no matter your draft spot.