BENGALS 2007 2ND ROUND PICK KENNY IRONS

[WhoDeyThink]

[quote name='The Scales' post='478210' date='Apr 28 2007, 08:11 PM']Not suprised. I guess having two chris henry's would have been one too much.
I wonder what flavor he is?

Cast iron?

Gray?

Ductile?

Ferrous?[/quote]
Just to clarify....Gray and Ductile are both "cast iron" , and Gray and ductile and cast iron are all "ferrous" metals. With that said hopefully he is Ductile iron. very durrable

[Guest oldschooler]

[quote][b][size=5]Dacula’s Kenny Irons taken by Cincinnati in second round [/size][/b]


04/29/2007

By Corey Clark
Staff Writer
corey.clark@gwinnettdailypost.com

Kenny Irons’ life came full circle on Saturday evening.

On the same Dacula field where he and his brother, David, starred in high school, the All-SEC running back found out exactly where he would be playing professional football for the next few years.

Irons, who rushed for more than 2,100 yards in his Auburn career, was selected by the Cincinnati Bengals in the second round (49th pick overall) of the NFL draft on Saturday.

As his friends and family watched in the end zone of the Dacula football stadium, Irons watched in a trailer adjacent to the field. And that’s where, at exactly 8:02 p.m., Irons saw his name appear on the bottom of the ESPN screen.

“I’m still woozy,” the former Daily Post Super Six selection said. “All these years you wouldn’t expect this to happen. I’m like a little kid right now. I’m like, ‘Wow.’”

A “little kid” that just happens to now be a player in the National Football League. Irons was the third running back taken in the draft, behind Oklahoma’s Adrian Peterson (seventh to the Vikings) and California’s Marshawn Lynch (12th to the Bills).

He becomes the second Gwinnett product drafted by Cincy in the last three years, joining former Shiloh star Davey Pollack who was a first-round pick in 2005.

“I’m so happy,” Irons said. “All my friends and family are here. I’m trying to smile a lot to hold back the tears. But it’s been great and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.
“It’s been awesome.”

And what made the day even more special for Irons and his brother was the celebration that took place in their honor at Dacula High School.

Typically an NFL prospect will have a draft party at their house, with maybe 10 to 20 people invited to watch the draft with them.

But that’s not how the Irons brothers roll.

Hundreds of friends, family members and Auburn football fans showed up for the Irons brothers draft party extravaganza on Saturday.

The end zone was painted with the word “Irons” on it. Midfield had “Kenny” and “David” painted with an NFL logo above it.

There was a marching band, a live band, an inflatable slide, a passing-accuracy game and tents set up all around the Dacula field with food and drinks.

And there were fans. Lots of orange-clad fans.

Even one, Rich Stinson, who came all the way from Fort Hood, Texas, to be at the event.
“It’s been great,” said Stinson, who came to the draft party with a couple of friends who live in the area. “There are a bunch of Auburn people here. … and it’s great for an Auburn fan to come out and support a couple of guys like Kenny and David, who have done so much to represent the university.

“It made perfect sense to come out and support the Auburn family.”

There was plenty of support from the Auburn family on Saturday.

Atlanta Auburn Club President Kathleen Saal estimated “200 to 300” members of the organization showed up on Saturday to support the Irons brothers.

“We were just talking about it,” Saal said, “how odd it was that we were basically having an Auburn tailgate party in Dacula. It’s kind of fun.

“And this was a really nice opportunity to come out and support Kenny and David.”
She was also very thankful to David Irons Sr. for organizing the event and allowing such a large number of Auburn fans to come out and enjoy the celebration.

“We just love Mr. Irons,” Saal said. “It’s so touching that he would think of us.”

Irons Sr. was touched by the support as well. And he had no reservations about staging such an extravagant draft party for his two boys.

“I didn’t want to just sit at home and be the big shots on the block,” Irons Sr. said. “It’s been a great day. It really broke up the monotony.

“It’s just been really cool.”
It got a whole lot cooler at about 8 p.m.

The crowd surrounding the TV in the end zone numbered around 100 when the Cincinnati Bengals were put on the clock.

The friends and family were milling around, talking and eating snacks when right there at the bottom of the screen the name appeared: Kenny Irons, RB, Auburn.

The crowd immediately erupted in applause and cheers.
There was lots of shouting and high-fives, and even a few tears.

And it was fitting that the celebration was taking place in the Dacula end zone considering how much time Kenny spent there during his playing days with the Falcons.

Five minutes later, Irons came from the trailer to celebrate with his friends and family as the cameras from Fox Sports followed his every step.

He gave countless hugs, posed for pictures, signed autographs and seemed to get a phone call every 10 seconds. And through it all, he could not stop smiling.

“It’s just been so much fun,” Irons said. “Nothing like this has ever happened at Dacula. So it’s been a blessing to share this with them.”

Irons became the first-ever player out of Dacula to be drafted in the NFL.
He should be joined today by his brother, David, who started at cornerback the last two years for Auburn and is considered one of the top remaining DBs available.

Although he wasn’t selected on Saturday, David enjoyed the day’s festivities as well.
“It was amazing,” he said. “The community really came out and showed support — there were 600 or so people, and there were a lot of Auburn fans.

“It was pretty neat.”
And it was a day that none of the Irons’ family members will ever forget.[/quote]




[url="http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/index.php?s=&url_channel_id=37&url_article_id=27424&url_subchannel_id=&change_well_id=2"]http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/index.php...hange_well_id=2[/url]

[Guest oldschooler]

[quote][size=5][b]In draft for defense, Bengals select RB [/b][/size]

Column by The Post's Lonnie Wheeler



There was much we enjoyed about Kenny Irons' speaker-phone interview, but not much we really understood. The kid was, shall we say, excited. There was a "woo!" and then a louder "woo!" and then the loudest "woo!" - all of which had something to do with a few delirious moments when an unknown number appeared on his cell phone and he didn't answer it and then the Bengals' second-round pick came up on the television and all the friends and relatives in the trailer were screaming and pointing because it was him, the Auburn running back staring at his phone and making peculiar noises.

Evidently, he and his people weren't expecting it at that point of the draft. From what we've picked up, neither were you. There wasn't much about Cincinnati's second choice that anybody understood.

Which is not to say that it was dumb. Actually, it wasn't. Not at all. But we'll get to that.

The conventional wisdom was that the Bengals needed to draft defense, and after that, some defense. There would only be two picks Saturday. With the first, they took a cornerback from Michigan named Leon Hall, a decision that nobody could reasonably dispute. As Chuck Bresnahan, the defensive coordinator, said, "We were trying to figure out if we had a decision to make with this pick, and we were all like, no."

Then came the running back.

The what?

On the second day of the draft, Marvin Lewis found himself explaining that one all over again.

"As the (first) day played on," Lewis said, "I think you saw what kind of defensive players went at the end of the second round. You know why we chose what we chose. The value was a little later in our minds.

"We would have liked to pick a defensive player, but in our opinion we would have been reaching for a guy to pick him at that spot. And then, at the end of the day, you guys are sitting there asking me three years from now, why isn't that guy playing? And that's what we don't want to do. We want to get guys we know can play some football for us at some point this season and hopefully be great players in the future. Kenny was obviously the best pick for us, with the best ability, the best talent. It was an area of need for us, and it gives us something maybe we can throw into the mix right away on opening day."

Yeah, what he said.

And this:

The Bengals have not been famous for their drafting, but there are a couple of things they've done very well over the years. They've done running backs (Pete Johnson, Corey Dillon, Ickey Woods, Harold Green, Rudi Johnson) well. And they've done the second round (Pete Johnson, Corey Dillon, Ickey Woods, Harold Green, Cris Collinsworth, Boomer Esiason, Eric Thomas, Bill Bergey, Tommy Casanova) well. With a running back in the second round, how could they go wrong?

From Auburn, no less. Bo Jackson. James Brooks. Joe Cribbs. Cadillac Williams. Rudi.

But even that is not the point. The point is that the Bengals' current running back from Auburn averaged only 3.8 yards a carry last year, nearly half a yard less than his previous career average, and he didn't have a run longer than 22 yards. As hard and selflessly as Rudi plays, and as much as we all admire him, he put opposing defenses at no particular disadvantage. And the running back from Hall's school, Chris Perry - the third-down guy and former No. 1 draft choice - is injured again, or still, and not likely to be ready to start the season, and no longer a piece of the Cincinnati offense that can be counted upon.

As desperate as their defense is, and as stacked as their offense is, it wasn't like the Bengals could allow the latter to fester and stagnate. It wasn't like they took an offensive tackle who doesn't show up on the other team's defensive game plan. (Well, they took a guard in the seventh round, but whatever.)

"We look at it as another weapon," said offensive coordinator Bob Bratkowski. "He (Irons) is another guy the defense has to defense. We haven't had a lot of long runs the past few seasons. This is a guy who can generate some of those plays."

And naturally, he'll tell you that. Irons talks so fast, with so much unbridled enthusiasm, that you might not catch it all without a tape recorder; but what he said about that the other day was, "I always tell people that I compare myself to LaDanian Tomlinson. I can go between the tackles, go outside the tackles.

"I'm a tough guy, hands down. Oh man, I'm a running back. Oh man, I'm so excited right now. I'm still woozy . . . "

All that's understandable, because Irons was hurt off and on his senior year, and although he made first team all-SEC for the second time, it wasn't as glittery as his junior year. So he wasn't sure where he'd be drafted. And he wasn't sure, either, if any team drafting him could actually find him, which might explain why he was suspicious about the unknown number on his cell phone.

He's from a place in Georgia called Dacula, and it was there, in a trailer at the high school, that Irons celebrated Saturday. "It's a little country town," he said. "You'd probably get lost trying to find it. You'll never see it on a map. You might put it in your navigation system and find it, but it might come up as Dracula or something. You might see Dracula and say, 'I'm not going over there.' You've got to get lost to find it."

There's just this feeling that he and Chad Johnson are going to have some very entertaining conversations in the locker room. Too bad the Bengals didn't take his brother, too.

David Irons was also an Auburn senior, and he was drafted Sunday in the sixth round by the Falcons. A cornerback. But the Bengals, by then, had already taken those in the first round for two years in a row, the first team to do that since Denver grabbed Willie Middlebrooks in the 2001 draft, a year after selecting our very own Deltha O'Neal.

Nevertheless, Cincinnati did go for a little more defense before the long weekend was out. In the fourth round (they had no pick in the third, having already taken starting middle linebacker Ahmad Brooks in last year's supplemental draft), the Bengals chose a safety from Texas Christian named Marvin White, who was described by the coaches as a hitter and described by himself as "a hard hitter. They know I can hit. I let it be known that I'm going to hit out there, that nobody is going to come through my zone, because I'm going to lay you out with a big hit. People are terrified just to come through my zone because I'm known as a big hitter."

So, presumably, they had the hitting thing covered by the fifth round, when they took a future backup quarterback from Nevada (Jeff Rowe, big fella). In the sixth, the Bengals beefed up their Pacific Island pass rush with an American Samoan tackle from Oregon named Matt Toeaina, who grew up playing alongside Cincinnati linemen Domata Peko and Jonathan Fanene. In the seventh, after the guard from Notre Dame (Dan Santucci), there was a safety from Notre Dame (Chinedum Ndukwe) with some curious consonant combinations who, if all goes well, will hit the guys White misses.

All of that, we understood. Everybody did.

The running back thing required a little more imagination, is all. It still may, some day, have you saying, "Woo!"

Contact Lonnie Wheeler at lwheeler@cincypost.com.[/quote]





[url="http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070430/SPT03/704300337/1022"]http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ar.../704300337/1022[/url]

[Actium]

Prisco from CBS Sportsline likes the irons pick:

Best pick: It might seem like the Bengals don't need a back, but taking Kenny Irons in the second round was a good move. Rudi Johnson has no big-play ability and Chris Perry is always hurt.

Incidentally, we got a B- overall grade from him.

[url="http://www.sportsline.com/nfl/story/10157575"]http://www.sportsline.com/nfl/story/10157575[/url]

[globetrotter]

[quote name='Bengals1181' post='478288' date='Apr 28 2007, 08:54 PM']only to a 1yr deal I think. Maybe the contract talks with Watson went so bad that they know they won't be able to sign him to a longeterm deal.[/quote]

Watson is signed through 2009.

[WhoDeyThink]

[quote name='Bengals_12th_Man' post='478947' date='Apr 29 2007, 11:56 AM'][url="http://go-bengals.com/12th/Wallpapers/kenny-irons800.jpg"]Kenny Irons 800x600[/url]
[url="http://go-bengals.com/12th/Wallpapers/kenny-irons1024.jpg"]Kenny Irons 1024x768[/url]
[url="http://go-bengals.com/12th/Wallpapers/kenny-irons960.jpg"]Kenny Irons 1280x960[/url]
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[img]http://go-bengals.com/12th/Wallpapers/kenny-irons800.jpg[/img][/quote]
I wonder what number he will wnat to wear?????????

[globetrotter]

[quote name='Bengals1181' post='478353' date='Apr 28 2007, 09:43 PM']I think Perry is going to land on the PUP and miss what, the first I think 6 games or is it 8? After that, Watson will probably be cut unless Perry get's IR'ed.[/quote]

We can keep Perrya round until week 9 with that PUP without cutting anyone. With potential injuries, if it is the case that Perry is still banged up, it would make sense to do so.

[EnglishBengal]

I reckon if Irons shows anything during the regular season, and stays durable, Perry will be gone. By which time, Irons will have proven he's more durable and at a lower cap number than Perry's hefty first round price.

[Guest oldschooler]

[quote][size=5][b]My stat of the day on RB duos[/b][/size]

[b]'06 Playoff teams RB duos...and total yards gained[/b]

Colts: Addai 1081 yards, Rhodes 641
Bears: Jones 1210, Benson 647
Saints: McAlister 1057, Bush 565
Pats: Dillon 812, Maroney 745
Seahawks: Alexander 896, Morris 604
Cowboys: Jones 1084, Barber 654
Chargers: LT 1815, Turner 502
Eagles: Westbrook 1217, Buckhalter 345
Giants: Tiki 1662, Jacobs 423
Chiefs: LH 1789, Bennett 200
Jets: Washington 650, Houston 374, Barlow 370
Ravens: Lewis 1132, Anderson 183
***
Average total yards of #2 back for playoff teams: 490 yards
Average total yards of #2 back for Super Bowl teams: 644
Average total yards of #2 back for Final Four teams: 649
[b]Bengals: Rudi 1309, Watson 138[/b][/quote]




[url="http://www.1530homer.com/pages/lancesBlog.html"]http://www.1530homer.com/pages/lancesBlog.html[/url]

[JBandJoeyV]

Next Year Rudi-1150
Irons-450
Perry-300

Total=1900

If perry is hurt it would prob be more like Rudi-1300 Irons-500

[JBandJoeyV]

Hopefully Perry will be healthy all year and then we can trade him for a second rounder or something, or even trade rudi and go Irons and perry.

Big ifs though on perry being healthy.

[Inigo Montoya]

[quote name='scharm' post='478673' date='Apr 29 2007, 09:30 AM']Until yardage determines winners and losers by itself being the 30th ranked yardage defense is no different than being the 20th ranked yardage defense.

Points and TOs.[/quote]


Agreed. Total points allowed is the only stat that matters, along with turnovers. We were 17th in points allowed and we were tied for 8th in total turnovers forced. Total defense, which is essentially total yards allowed, is hardly as important as points and turnovers.

[Guest Tigris]

[quote name='Whodey420' post='478656' date='Apr 29 2007, 08:50 AM']So by your 2's logic Rudi was only the 11th best RB taken in the 2001 draft? And according
to your logic he wasnt even the best RB on his college team? Heath Evans (RB Auburn) was
taken in the 3rd round 2001.

Here's a list of the RB's taken before Rudi.

LaDainian Tomlinson
Duece McCallister
Michael Bennett
Anthony Thomas
Lamont Jordan
Travis Henry
James Jackson
Kevan Barlow
Heath Evans
Travis Minor
Rudi Johnson
Boy, that's some really good logic you two have come up with.[/quote]

And that post was borderline

Hindsight is always 20/20 my man. I can't believe you took the time to look up and type all those guys out just in an attempt to... well, I don't even know what you're trying to do. We were just trying to be positive on the situation and you come along and try to tear us down. I'm sure you knew Rudi was going to be the back he is right now when he was drafted, huh? [img]http://forum.go-bengals.com/public/style_emoticons//33.gif[/img]

[Guest Tigris]

i really think perry's days here are numbered