happyrid

Hyatt Regency.

I think Vegas has us at 15th. Gut feeling is we'll be better than that. Aside from question marks about the young OTs, the roster looks pretty loaded at just about every position group.

Just looking at PFF grades for 2016, Nelson was 81.3 and Shawn Williams was 80.6. So basically identical. Williams is 8 years younger ...

Yeah, this system is so much better for the bad teams. We got AJ Green for like 4 years, $23M with a relatively cheap 5th year option. Ross is only 4 years, $17M. Under the new system though, it definitely is more of a negative when you're always drafting in the 20s. It has been noticeable that we had gone 6 years without drafting in the top half of the first round and getting an elite player at a bargain price. While 2016 sucked, it was nice picking near the top of each round (and using some of that draft capital to trade down and add Josh Malone).

This. I also think it'll make life easier for the OL. A lot of defenses last year were sneaking Safeties into the box and blitzing a lot more than normal (especially after AJ went down). If Boyd or LaFell beat them 1-on-1 (probably for a shorter gain) they'd live with it. But they also knew that stacking the box would clog lanes in the run game and make life difficult for the OL in pass blocking. It wasn't a fool proof strategy. I think Dalton and LaFell were excellent against the Eagles for example when they used this exact strategy. We got rid of the ball quickly and our WRs won their fair share of individual matchups. But better defenses with better corners made life difficult on our offense.

I think this will end up being a real possibility depending upon how the numbers shake out. I assume they will keep Cedric Peerman as the 4th RB and if so, he'll be active because he's the special teams captain. Most seasons, they've only had 3 RBs on the active 45-man gameday roster so even though Hill would technically be ahead of Peerman on the depth chart, he would probably be the inactive RB due to special teams.

Based on all the reports and rumors, it doesn't sound like Gio is going to have to go on PUP. Seems like worst case is he'd miss the first few games, but just as likely he's ready to go Week 1. Still don't see any reason to cut Hill. He's cheap and we don't have any better options for the 3rd RB.

I have a lot of money out there on FanDuel/DraftKings every week. I bet a little bit every other week or so on player props and game spreads on bovada.

It is mostly scheme-related. The Bengals typically play with both safeties a little deeper than other teams. Kind of a "bend but don't break" style. They try not to give up the deep pass plays and have been much better than league average in not giving up big 20+ yard passes. They will give up some short completions to RBs and TEs and force you to really march it down the field on long drives. You also see them do a really good job on 3rd down and long of forcing teams to dump it off short of the first down and then have the LBs and DBs come up and make the tackle short of the first down. I think back to the game vs. KC in 2015 (http://www.espn.com/nfl/boxscore?gameId=400791712) as a perfect example of the philosophy in action. Gave up 31 completions and 386 yards passing to Alex Smith. A lot of dump offs to J. Charles, T. Kelce and quick passes to Jeremy Maclin. But we didn't give up any touchdowns and won pretty easily.

Stumbled on this after watching a few of the videos linked above. Jake Elliott's full pro day workout: He just crushes the ball. Hits a 63-yarder at about the 4:30 mark with room to spare.

Just so I understand the logic here...based upon this nebulous definition, which player could the Bengals have drafted at #9 that wouldn't have been a "reach"? Was it Foster who slid to 31? Allen who fell to 17? Barnett or Hooker who went 14 or 15? It doesn't really matter what guys were ranked by the media pre-draft. NFL obviously viewed the value of these guys differently.

I saw another report that 16 of 32 teams had Mixon on their board. So who knows... Pretty sure it was reported that Buffalo was targeting a WR, though Ross might not have been one of their targets. They ended up trading up in round 2 for the next WR off the board (Zay Jones). With the kicker, I don't think it mattered if they took him 5th or 6th round. Their round 5 targets were Eliot, Evans and Dielman and they got all of them, so the order they used worked. Also, I think you have to take all rankings with a major grain of salt. That's especially true of the kicker rankings. I doubt these draft analysts are spending hours and hours scouting the kickers. And our well respected special teams coach spent 100s of hours, worked each out individually, psychological testing, background work, etc. I don't understand why you would trust a random internet evaluation over what Darrin Simmons says.

Erickson has an uphill battle to make the team IMO. Not only did we snag a couple receivers with much higher upside and speed. But we also drafted three different guys (Ross, Mixon and Wilson) who are excellent return men. If Erickson isn't clearly the best returner, then not sure of his role. Because we have Boyd to start in the slot and both LaFell and Ross have experience inside too.

Good info. I like the pick in the 6th round. A 6'2, 232 pound guy who is great in coverage and runs in the low 4.5s has a pretty special skill set. If it was all there with the toughness and mentality, he's a guy who would have gone in round 2. I'd rather take a small risk (pick #193) on a guy like this with upside than to take a crap athlete with no special physical traits just because he's tough.

I didn't have a real point, just thought it was funny because I remembered that Bodine was kind of the "anti-finesse" pick in recent years and nobody likes him either. (Christian Westerman would also fall into the anti-finesse category. To your point, I don't think they're going out of their way to target finesse linemen.) Dielman seems like a very tough guy even if his game is more finesse/technique than brute strength. I'm a Buckeye fan and I'd say that's a pretty accurate description of Pat Elflein as well (who everyone here seems to love). OL are probably the toughest position to scout, so I do think your point about taking the scouting reports with a giant grain of salt is right on. We'll see if this guy turns into anything or not. I don't have a strong take on him.