What Would Your Draft Have Been?

[kevin]

(Yesterday, 02:10 PM)ochocincos Wrote: I hope Golden can at least get the defense back to Paul Guenther level (middle of pack, sometimes better).
Ideally it'd be back to a Top 10 defense like when Zimmer was DC.

Even a middle-of-the-pack defense with an offense like they had most of last year would result in being one of the best AFC teams.
Both offense and defense being Top 10 could have them as the top seed in the AFC.

It's said that Golden will expect to have more flexibility and adjust not only to what the opponents are doing but also better cater to their own players' strengths.
We'll see how well that happens, but more (press) man coverage and more 3-LB looks than Bengals were doing under Anarumo.

I think we probably gave Anarumo more credit than he deserved though, as 4 of his 6 years had the 21st ranked defense or worse.
2021 was just middle of the pack and some timely turnovers in the playoffs.
2022 was the overall best defense, and the only one that was Top 10 in Points Allowed.
2019 and 2020 were disastrous for him, so much so that I and others wanted him gone for 2021. But the back-to-back deep postseason run really helped keep him around longer.

Not just 3 LB's.  Golden is talking sometimes 4 LB's.   Of course, Bengals didn't have enough Front 7, so in the Draft they added more Front 7.   Golden says sometimes 4 LB's.  This is going to be a whole new defense, and as bad as Bengals were on defense, I welcome the change.   With Burrow, Chase and Higgins locked in, let's get back to The Super Bowl. 

So we agree Ochocinco that we hope the Defense gets better.   You take Burrow, Chase and Higgins and build a good Defense here, and going back to the Super Bowl is very possible, only this time, the Bengals finally win a Super Bowl.