HappyDays

This gives Jermaine Burton vibes. I wouldn't touch him in the 1st round.

After looking at the calendar, the Bengals are revising their selection. With the 17th pick they select Will Campbell, OT, LSU. The Seahawks @Logic are on the clock. This is an absolute dream scenario for Cincy. We have needs all across the roster but the biggest priority has to be protecting Burrow who has already missed basically two seasons with injuries. One lingering concern with Campbell is he may be a more natural guard at the next level. But in Cincy that's fine. We have Orlando Brown to man LT and our 2024 1st rounder Amarius Mims slated to be the RT. So Campbell can start his career in his more natural position with upside to transition to LT in the future. This is a no brainer pick getting a top 10 prospect at a position of need who happened to slide.

With the 17th pick the Cincinnati Bengals select Tetairoa McMillan, WR, Arizona. That's right folks. The Bengals are building a dynasty on nothing but WRs. Defense? Unneccessary. Mike Brown will have to open his famously large checkbook to pay for a new scoreboard that can fit triple digits on the home side. Offensive line? Burrow's bones and ligaments will be considered optional with this cast of weapons.

Yeah makes sense to let the medical staff evaluate him if nothing else. ACL tears don't concern me too much, young players can rebound from them pretty quickly with no lingering effects other than possible mental hurdles. He apparently is a high character prospect and he has an elite length and speed combination. So he fits a lot of what this regime looks for in the 1st round. If the medicals are clean it would be a great 1st round pick IMO.

I don't think this was reported anywhere yet but I was told CB Shavon Revel will be one of our top 30 visits.

So you agree teams should not be able to cut a player before their contract runs out? Since the team signed the contract and agreed to those terms?

Jimmy Haslam has finally admitted their mistake: So that officially ends Watson's career in Cleveland.

Bengals Chargers Colts

He says all that, meanwhile it's been reported we're having every possible type of workout and meeting with Isaiah Bond who's projected as a late 2nd rounder. Laviska Shenault is currently our #5 WR on the depth chart... So yeah I wouldn't take Beane's comments to mean they are done at the position. At least I hope he isn't sincerely resting on last year's laurels to proclaim that the passing offense doesn't need any work. That would be depressing.

They both spoke from the owners' meeting today. A few takeaways: -I remain slightly concerned about Cook potentially holding out without a new deal. Beane says "I think" Cook is a pro, "I'm sure" he'll want to prove his value. We'll see where that goes. -When he says CBs that can't tackle well aren't considered fits, the 1st round CB that would apply to this year is Maxwell Hairston. But it could be a smokescreen. Tre White was known to have tackling issues coming out of LSU. Elam as well. If they really cared that much, it hasn't shown up in their draft strategy. -Ogunjobi being labeled as a rotational 3T is not really what I hoped for the money we paid him. This means 1T is still a big need entering the draft and if say Kenneth Grant is still on the board I think they'll take him. -McDermott talks about Rapp like he's a locked in starter. That leaves Bishop's role in question. He doesn't seem like a natural fit at FS, it would be tough for him to beat out Darrick Forrest I think. We might be looking at another year on the bench or in spot duty if Rapp gets injured, with the plan for him to take over in 2026.

QB purgatory is the worst fate in the NFL.

It's 1 year and then we'll see: No way he's seeing that $26.5M cap hit in 2026. They could cut him next year and leave a $9.7M dead cap hit.

That's more a function of Beane offering all of his good draft picks early extensions. You will always get a player below their theoretical market value if you give them a contract one year before they hit FA. As a strategy it's hit and miss. Sometimes you wind up with an albatross like Knox's contract, but sometimes you end up with a massive steal like Spencer Brown's contract. I lean towards Benford's looking like a massive steal in two years.

I still think the concussion concern was overblown. Until the end of this past season he had had no reported concussions in his career. The 2nd one only happened because we rushed him through the concussion protocol to get him on the field for the AFCCG. I don't see any long term risk there. It is a bit concerning that he has missed two important playoff games in consecutive years and has had some general injury issues throughout his career but nothing so bad it scares me away from this deal.

This was my priority extension of the offseason, and at under $20M AAV it's even better than I expected. He's only 24 years old so plenty of room to grow still too.

Yeah that's fair, I have more faith in Williams because at least he is over 30" arms and his release is very very good. To me he just looks more like a natural Z than Noel does. It's possible he will be relegated to just a slot role but there is upside to be an outside WR IMO. Also we're talking about 2nd rounder with Noel vs 4th rounder for Williams, so the risk is mitigated.

The deep threat I'm looking for needs to be able to play outside and get around press. I don't see Noel doing that in the NFL. Kyle Williams remains the only true vertical threat that I'm interested in in this class. Admittedly he may have a difficult time dealing with physical coverage especially early on but the release package is great and he's shown an ability to separate downfield and outside. His frame can still fill out some too compared to Noel who's small size and length gives him a hard ceiling.

So I guess his whole thing is he played off ball LB and very recently switched to EDGE. https://www.nfl.com/prospects/oluwafemi-oladejo/32004f4c-4111-0743-ebea-7a82f613f94c Basically if you draft him you're betting on traits and potential for development.

Currently projected as a late 3rd rounder.

We've had this conversation about Shakir. It's really difficult if not impossible to make a living outside with sub-30" arms. Maybe Noel will be the one in a million but you have to draft based on a reasonable projection and for him that projection puts him in the slot. We just paid $15M AAV for Shakir to man that position so personally I'm not interested in spending a high pick on the same role.

The speed jumps off the screen but it's hard to see his fit in our offense. Strikes me as a slot only and that will make it hard to get on the field here.

Chris Simms said people he's talked to have mentioned major character concerns surrounding Isaiah Bond. He said he didn't know all the details but had heard it was "really bad." I've seen a couple other rumors along the same lines. It's odd that we're openly showing so much interest in him if that's true because usually we shy away from that type of player. Smokescreen?

Every team enters the draft with a glaring need at at least one position. That's inevitable. Baltimore desperately needs a CB across from Wiggins (assuming Humphrey is staying in the slot). KC desperately needs OL help. Cincy desperately needs help pretty much everywhere except QB and WR. There's no way you are going to plug holes at every position in FA with teams making it a point to lock up their own good players. I think people take the wrong lesson away from 2022. I know the common narrative is that we went in desperate at CB and that led to us forcing a bad pick. Me, I think we just misevaluated the player and nothing else needs to be said about it. I have no qualms about entering this draft with a need at CB. Beane needs to select a starting caliber player, that's his job.