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I have always thought that the Bengal used about as many young players as any of the other good teams in the league. good teams usually have fewer holes for rookies to fill.
Here are the top ten teams in regular season victories over the last three years and how many starts they have gotten from their draft picks over that span.
NUMBER OF STARTS BY PLAYERS FROM LAST THREE DRAFTS
KC.....230
GB.....228
Dal....200
Car....188
NE.....159
Cin....154
Pitt....151
Den...148
Ari.....147
Sea...122
NUMBER OF PICKS WHO HAVE STARTED AT LEAST 16 GAMES OVER LAST THREE YEARS
KC....6
Dal...5
GB...5
NE...4
Car...4
Cin...3
Den..3
Ari...3
Sea..3
Pitt...2
So the bengals are pretty much middle of the pack when it comes to good team playing draft picks early.
I would mention that these numbers do not include Ryan Hewitt who has started 34 games for the Bengals over the last three years, but I am sure some of these other teams also have undrafted free agents from the last 3 years who have started at least 16 games. They are not included because I just don't have an easy way to look up that info,
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Part of the problem is the Bengal coaches are notorious for being slow to pull the trigger on poor performing players. Look at how many games Nugent cost us this year before they cut him (three, 2 losses and the tie). Or leaving Og in at RT for so long when they should have benched him by halftime of Game 2 at the latest. Then there was letting Bodine "play" Center all season until they FINALLY benched him for part of the second Rat game for TJ Johnson - amazingly when Johnson was in all of a sudden the line looked far better - so of course what do they do? Put Bodine back in and the interior line follies promptly started back up.
And so on and so on.