SNEAKY SUSPICION

[CJD]

(04-30-2022, 09:05 PM)RASCAL Wrote: I can honestly say that picking late in rounds left us no better than we were before the draft. I know its because we went to the SB, but unfortunately we lost. I was excited to before the draft but after waiting all the way down the draft and just realized all the players we needed were already gone. Thus the picks we got seem to me to be bottom of the barrel and feels to me like nothing we got was no more than camp fodder. I hope I am wrong and I hope they all can contribute to our success. 1 lineman, way to many safeties and defensive edge rushers. No linebackers at all which we desperately needed and nothing to brag about to reinforce our hideous Oline.
I hope I am dead wrong and would appreciate if anyone of you could build my confidence. Please help out. I hated waiting so long.

When you have a super bowl roster, the odds aren't great that 4th to 7th round picks will make a meaningful impact on the team. What the Bengals did was add depth in a few areas that needed depth. 

The 5th round safety is lightning fast (4.36 40, 9.49 RAS) and adds depth to a position that, prior to this draft, consisted of 5 total players (Bates, Bell, Henderson, Thomas, Wilson) who will be free agents in 2023. He may not have an impact this year on anything other than special teams, but he will have an impact next year, as he'll likely be the 3rd safety in the system at that point (I don't expect us to re-sign both Bates and Bell next off season).

Volson is another depth piece because, in the 4th round, you can't expect to draft someone who will reliably compete for the starting LG position with 2 2nd year players who were drafted higher than him in their respective draft. What he adds is a mean streak that can come in as the 6th man or in case of an injury and hold up, perhaps throw a player around. At his pro day, he showcased athleticism that would have put him in the 9.5s on the RAS scale and he broke NDSU's record for most games played, so you know he's experienced.

And the 7th round pick....I mean, you should never expect anything from a 7th round pick, but even in this case, we got a supremely athletic player. He scored a 9.75 RAS with an elite 40, vertical and broad jump and bench press. He had production as well, with 6.5 sacks in each of his last 2 seasons as well as 9 forced fumbles in 3 full years. 

I don't have a problem with any of the players we drafted in the 3rd day and think all 3 of them have a good shot at contributing in some way, especially relative to their draft position. If Volson turns into a competent back up, that's a good 4th round pick. If Anderson becomes a reliable 3rd safety and spot starter, that's a good 5th round pick. If Gunter makes the team, that's a great 7th round pick.

Remember, picking 2nd to last in each round (not counting compensatory picks) is a lot different than drafting near or at the top of each round, which we've done each of the last 3 years. A late 4th round pick is very similar to a 5th round pick, a late 5th to a 6th etc. It was the expectation that better players were going to come off the board as we waited for our pick. I know a few of my favorite players in the second half of the round went off in a row in the beginning of the 4th and 5th rounds (Shakir and Turner in the 5th, Kolar and Ferguson in 4th).

I'm not sure who you saw at our picks that you felt would have been better picks, but I think we got pretty good value considering where we were picking.

EDIT: Whoops, I misread the OP and thought he was talking specifically about day 3. The idea that Hill, CTB and Carter are training camp fodder was just so absurd to me, my eyes did not allow me to read the OP properly.

Hill is an elite prospect who will get plenty of playing time this year and especially next year. CTB is likely the starting CB2 by mid season barring injuries and, even if Apple has the season of his life, CTB probably still comes in for him throughout the year. And Carter will eat up many, if not the majority, of the 500 snaps at 3T left behind when Hill took Ogunjobi's starting spot (Ogunjobi had 700 snaps, Hill had 500 snaps last year).

None of these players are camp fodder and will have a relatively large impact on the field from day 1. Most of it will be in sub packages, as we did not have many, if any, spots that we'd likely been able to draft starters when picking 31st in each draft. The only player I can even think of that may have a bigger day 1 impact than the players we picked in the first 2 days would have been Logan Hall in the first round, and he had his own set of questions and risks that I don't think we get with Hill. Drafting Hall would have been drafting for need rather than drafting BPA, which is what Hill was.