Yes the Bengals have had a few misses in the draft too, and all teams do. Its almost impossible not to have misses in the draft, and the Bengals over the last 4 or 5 years have had more guys than most who have ended up being starters or contributors on the team. As I mentioned in the post above basically every starter on the Bengals offense was a Bengal draft pick and that offense was a top 10 offense before injuries killed them last year.

Again, being starters or contributors on a team that can't win in the post season isn't saying much.

The 2010 Draft produced 4 starters one of them being a star player in Geno.

 

The 2011 Draft produced 3 starters one of them being a star player in Green (the rest of the draft sucked though)

 

The 2012 Draft produced produced 4 starters and that is not including Dre Kirkpatrick who may be a starter this year and then Brandon Thompson is a guy who doesn't start but is in the D-line rotation. So 4 starters and 6 guys who play.

 

The 2013 draft produced Tyler Eifert who will be a starter this year, Bernard, and Hunt is in the D-line rotation but was a project so we have to see on him, and then Burkhead who probably with his playoff performance has worked his way into more playing time. So the 2013 draft produced two really good players who could be impact players, and two at best role players. Now the rest of that draft did suck.

 

The 2014 draft produced Jeremy Hill who may end up being one of the best backs in the league, Denard who has talent and either him or Dre will start this year, Will Clarke who worked his way into the rotation last year but jury is out on him, Bodine who is a starter, James Wright who is a good special teams player but also showed he is a pretty good receiver and probably will be the 4th receiver this year.

 

So yeah it is safe to say compared to the majority of the NFL the Bengals have drafted well and got guys who have helped them win games and also two star players in Geno and Green. Every team has draft picks that they will miss on, as a whole the Bengals have been one of the better drafting teams in the NFL over this span.

The issue is, it has been proven time and time again that RB's are not too hard to find in lower rounds and is why there are very few if any RB's going anymore in the 1st round.

 

Lets look at Gio for instance, who btw I really like. He was our 2nd round pick in 2013 and by 2014 he already lost his starting position. So we spend 2 high picks on the same position in back to back years.

Now let's

talk about the injuries which you stated is the reason behind our offensive drop off last year. How many years now have we heard how talented and deep this team is? If that were the fact then we shouldn't have that big of drop off. I will say something else along that line also. Going i to last year there were several on here bragging about how great our WR corps was. If that was the case then how come they were so horrible in production without AJ Green? Sanu was horrible through the majority of the season. He had like 2 good games and then led the league in drops. A team that has drafted for depth the last few years have really not done that great of a job.

 

Oh and that stat about the bengals drafting players that are playing on the team is among the most, well it's not hard to keep draft picks when you don't go out and spend the money on other teams FA's that can help. It also isn't as hard to play for a bad team either.

 

There you go with the bad team stuff that just really kills any sensible credibility you have when talking about the Bengals. Bad teams don't make the playoffs 4 straight years. If the Bengals are a bad team, then I hate to see what you would think of other teams.

 

As for the depth you talk about. Well when you #2 receiver doesn't play a single game, your pro bowl receiver misses 5 games including the playoff game, your #4 receiver in Wright gets hurt and misses the last month, Eifert who they planned on using a lot in the passing game gets hurt in the 1st series of the season, then yeah your depth will hurt. So then you have a guy like Sanu who is having to play as the #1 and he did show he could do very well at times like that. However when you have him as your #3 receiver which he was the year before that does show you have depth and why they were in the top 10 in offense.

 

Btw you still talk about going and spending money on big name free agents. I don't know about you but I am sure glad they didn't spend big money two years ago on someone like a Mike Wallace like you wanted. You want them to spend big money on free agents, but then complain about being worried about not keeping own talent makes sense.

The best part of this all is your talk on not winning a playoff game and your talk about them being just a bad team and not much talent. However you completely contradict yourself when you start talking about Dalton and Lewis. We know you feel Lewis is the worst coach in the league and you feel that Dalton is the worst QB in the league. Which the two spots teams need to be good at to win is to either have a good head coach, or a good QB. If we have the two worst people at those spots, then you would think we are a team that would be luck to win 2 games. So something must be better than what you ever want to admit if they are able to go to 4 straight playoff games with the worst QB and Coach in the league. Shows that there is more talent than you think then.

 

Which the coach and QB is the answer to your question about lack of playoff wins.

There you go with the bad team stuff that just really kills any sensible credibility you have when talking about the Bengals. Bad teams don't make the playoffs 4 straight years. If the Bengals are a bad team, then I hate to see what you would think of other teams.

 

As for the depth you talk about. Well when you #2 receiver doesn't play a single game, your pro bowl receiver misses 5 games including the playoff game, your #4 receiver in Wright gets hurt and misses the last month, Eifert who they planned on using a lot in the passing game gets hurt in the 1st series of the season, then yeah your depth will hurt. So then you have a guy like Sanu who is having to play as the #1 and he did show he could do very well at times like that. However when you have him as your #3 receiver which he was the year before that does show you have depth and why they were in the top 10 in offense.

 

Btw you still talk about going and spending money on big name free agents. I don't know about you but I am sure glad they didn't spend big money two years ago on someone like a Mike Wallace like you wanted. You want them to spend big money on free agents, but then complain about being worried about not keeping own talent makes sense.

You missed my point about the Free agents I said the Bengals have a bad habbit of spending too much money on middle of the road players and they are mostly their own middle of the road players. R Malaluga is a prime example year, Peko in the past is another example etc. as far as their own draft picks, you made the post talking about each year getting 1 good player, that was my point!!! You ig ores what I said in my earlier post. The Bengals have more misses in the high rounds (2-3) than hits. I am not talking about their entire drafts, you go that route then you look even worse with only getting on avg 1 good player each year from all their picks.

 

I do agree, as I've preached for years, that the coach and QB are the biggest reason we haven't won anything. Unfortunatley the door is closing fast on this team. The best players we have are not getting younger and are closer to the end of their careers than the beginning.

You missed my point about the Free agents I said the Bengals have a bad habbit of spending too much money on middle of the road players and they are mostly their own middle of the road players. R Malaluga is a prime example year, Peko in the past is another example etc. as far as their own draft picks, you made the post talking about each year getting 1 good player, that was my point!!! You ig ores what I said in my earlier post. The Bengals have more misses in the high rounds (2-3) than hits. I am not talking about their entire drafts, you go that route then you look even worse with only getting on avg 1 good player each year from all their picks.

 

I do agree, as I've preached for years, that the coach and QB are the biggest reason we haven't won anything. Unfortunatley the door is closing fast on this team. The best players we have are not getting younger and are closer to the end of their careers than the beginning.

 

With Peko I completely agree with you, I have no idea why they extended him. Rey M. I don't mind his deal he got because most of the money he is getting in his contract is this first year, so he can easily be cut if it comes down to it after this year and even if they keep him he isn't that expensive after this season.

 

Where did you get from my post that they only got one good player from drafts? They got 4 starters from the 2010 draft, 3 starters from the 2011 draft and 4 starters from the 2012 draft and two other guys who play a lot and a 5th starer depending on if Dre starts this year. Now the 2013 draft had a guy in Eifert who would be a starter if he could stay healthy, and Gio was a starter however the Bengals ended up drafting another RB who may end up being a top RB in the league. However Gio is still a huge playmaker to have, now if they use him the right way is a different story. They need to have them both on the field more often but that gets back to the coaching which we agree on. The 2014 draft as I already mentioned got us a guy who may be a top RB in the NFL this year, and Denard who looks to have the talent to be a great CB but its a wait and see on him. So most of the drafts since 2010 have produced 3 or 4 starters each draft. If you are producing 3 or 4 starters that means you are drafting pretty well. They are now at a point since they have drafted so well, where they may only be able to draft one and if they are lucky two guys who could start right away because of positions being filled.

 

It really comes down to what we both do agree on and that is the need for a new coach and QB. A lot of these draft picks would stand out more if we did have a different QB or possibly new coach because they would have maybe got this team over the hump. So we do at least agree on probably needing a new coach and QB to get over the hump.

Hellbird what areas are you wanting to see the Bengals address in the draft? I would love to see them get an OL or another DL in the 1st round depending on who is available.