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Hobson: Defensive stand


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Defensive stand

Posted 6 hours ago

hobson60x60.jpgGeoff HobsonEditorBengals.comFollow Me Blog

 

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Malik Jefferson can play all three backer spots.

We haven’t seen Teryl Austin much at all this offseason, his first as the Bengals defensive coordinator.

But when he surfaced late Friday night in the media room with three of his position coaches from all three levels of his defense, it was a little bit clearer how he plans to take them to the next level.
 
Versatility, flexibility and multiplicity as the defense swept the second and third rounds for the Bengal draft room with the help of what appeared to be a Bengal first. They traded down in a round to move up in the next when they dealt back eight spots in the second round to pull themselves out of the last pick of Friday night from 100 all the way up to 78.

The Bengals weren’t enamored of the health of the offensive tackles or the talent level of the defensive tackles at this point in the draft. They’re loaded at wide receivers and running back and it was too early to grab a quarterback.

So believing they were looking at the same players at 46 that they would be looking at in the mid-third round, they made the trade with Kansas City.

“We felt moving back eight spots or so would allow us to likely still pick from the same group of players,” said head coach Marvin Lewis. “It was good among everyone here because they get to go home a little early. We had a chance to move up and pick in the middle of the round. That was appealing to us.”

So three players staring at them as possibilities with the 46th pick all ended up on Austin’s defense.
 
With the 54th pick in the second round he got the free safety he’s sought ever since he got here in Wake Forest’s young but instinctive Jessie Bates III. With the 77th and 78th pick in the third round, Austin went back-to-back for a relentless pass rusher the other team always seems to have in Ohio State’s Sam Hubbard by way of Cincinnati’s Moeller High School,  and a five-star recruit t Texas who began to play that way this season in linebacker Malik Jefferson.

“One of the things I think you should be able to do is not have guys pigeon-holed. You want to have guys who can move around,” Austin said.  Sam plays outside and can rush inside.  Bates makes the plays and is strong. There’s a lot of different things here that can go on with Jefferson. He can run, he can play middle or outside. Those are things we are looking for in guys — versatility — so we’re not pigeon-holed into what we can and can’t do.”

What it means for the veteran incumbents remain to be played out since at first blush it doesn’t seem like any of the three rookies will start right away. But the Bengals are running out of roster room at all three positions.

The draftnicks are saying that. Bates, 21, needs some time to develop into a starter, Jefferson comes in behind some experienced guys, and Hubbard figures to keep his rotational role going from college.

Austin is calling Bates “a free safety candidate,” which seems to indicate a slight switch from head coach Marvin Lewis’ insistence a safety is a safety. But this safety sounds like he’ll be playing more of what George Iloka does than Shawn Williams.

The buzz word is “skill set,” in that Bates has a different one than what’s already at safety.
“He was in a system that puts some pressure on safeties when they were covering slots, when it was man-to-man and covering ‘two-way goes,’ and he was holding up,” said safeties coach Robert Livingston.

Jefferson is paying the price for great expectations. He came out of the Dallas suburb of Mesquite, Texas in 2014 as the top backer in the country before becoming a freshman All-America. Since then the pundits have been critical he hasn’t been Superman ever since. But he is gifted with 4.5 40-yard dash speed.

“It’s very tough. You know that Texas puts that pressure on you, because there’s no NFL teams out there for that city,” Jefferson said. “So they put a lot of pressure on you, but they have the right guys there with you. The university will take care of itself, and the guys there will have to step up in the future because of what we were establishing as a foundation there as players for those guys to (follow). The University of Texas did me a great favor for me by preparing me for this day.”

But linebackers coach Jim Haslett isn’t looking for a five-star guy. He’ll take a guy that just wants to star and Jefferson has all the tools

“It adds to what we’ve done the last couple of years with Nick Vigil, a linebacker who can run, andJordan Evans,” Haslett said. “This was another guy who ran a 4.5. He’s got great speed. He’s got great size and good position. He’s a three-year starter at Texas. He was a captain as a junior, and then came out early. He’s got a lot of upside to him. I went down and worked him out, and he had an outstanding workout. He’s a guy who I honestly thought he wouldn’t be there at this pick. It’s a good pick up for this team. He should be able to help us on special teams, which we need.”

If anybody is impacted by Jefferson it is the undrafted rookies of last season, Hardy Nickersonand Brandon Bell. The man who made the third-round announcements, 209 third-round right endMichael Johnson, doesn’t seem to be in trouble despite the addition of Hubbard.  They like the way Johnson can move inside to rush the passer.
 
But they also like what these three guys bring to the table. It’s believed to be the first time they picked three straight defenders since 2015.
 
“Each of the guys is different, but I do think they each have the technique,” Austin said. “We talked about the motor in Sam, and in terms of the other guys and how fast and athletic they are. I think we added speed and athleticism, toughness, grit and great motors. All these guys play hard.”
 
 
 
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Shades of '12 draft gets defensive

Posted 9 hours ago

hobson60x60.jpgGeoff HobsonEditorBengals.comFollow Me Blog

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The fruits of Friday night in rounds two and three.
 
It has kind of a whiff of 2012.
 
The Bengals would love that, if this weekend’s draft turned out like that one since it yielded six starters or regulars and doubled the standard of three for each draft. It was a big lift for the 2011 team’s surprising play-off appearance and helped set the table for those five straight post-season runs.

Like the ’12 draft, this one was defined by trades. Six years ago the deals for Carson Palmer and Chad Johnson gave them picks that translated into three starters in cornerback Dre Kirkpatrick and wide receiver Marvin Jones and safety George Iloka. A swap of draft picks with New England in the first round gave them starting right guard Kevin Zeitler and rotational defensive tackle Brandon Thompson.

Last month director of player personnel Duke Tobin set the tone for this weekend by acquiring Bills left tackle Cordy Glenn and swapping first-round picks and then used No. 21 to acquire a starting center in Ohio State’s Billy Price during Thursday’s first round.

But it was his trade Friday night that energized the room and brought second-round safety Jessie Bates III of Wake Forest and third-round linebacker Malik Jefferson of Texas. When the Bengals moved back eight spots to the Chiefs’ pick at No. 54, they settled on Bates, a ball-hawking safety they were eyeballing at No. 46. For their troubles they vaulted from the last pick in the third round to No. 78 in a move they’ve never made before. Trading down in one round to move up in another. Jefferson is the answer to that trivia question.

Yes, they’ve moved up just five times in their history. But it looks like there is some revisionism going on. Tobin has done it three times in the last five years.

“The move Duke made yesterday, with moving back eight spots and then moving up 20, was advantageous to us,” Lewis said. “When you looked at where we would have been at pick 100, we liked the picks that we had after picking the player (Price) that we picked earlier. So that worked out great for us. We would not have been as happy with the players left on the board or the players that went there after we picked. Sitting at 100 and getting the player we wanted, that wouldn’t have occurred yesterday. So we really feel that was an advantageous move.”

Tobin, Lewis and Bengals president Mike Brown patiently worked the board. Some drafts are like that. Your guys fall to you and you don’t reach to even stretch between rounds.

They were looking at Bates, Jefferson, and Ohio State defensive end Sam Hubbard among a few others in a clump at No. 46. They felt they could get at least one of them later. But they got all three by the end of the night.

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Fort Wayne's Jessie Bates (right) and Cincinnati's Sam Hubbard get acquainted. They both drove to Paul Brown Stadium.

On Saturday they looked hard at Toledo quarterback Logan Woodside in the fifth round and without a sixth-round pick (a casualty of the Chris Smith trade), they thought it would be dicey. So they thought about doing what they did last year by packaging some seventh-rounders and getting back up into the sixth.
But they took a shot Woodside would be there at 249, the first of their three seventh-rounders, and he was.

And for the second straight draft they got their highest rated-player on the board to begin the final day in the Carl Lawson Honorary Spot with the selection of Miami running back Mark Walton in the fourth round.

“There was talk of moving up to make sure we got the quarterback. Mike Brown has that crystal ball, so we stayed right there and still picked him,” Lewis said of Woodside. “And then we were able to pick off the offensive lineman (Rod Taylor) and the receiver (Auden Tate), so that was good. That worked out well.” 
 
The Bengals had an off-season plan and once they put in the card belonging to Western Michigan return ace Darius Phillips for their final pick in the fifth round Saturday, it was almost complete with the veterans scheduled to go on the field for the first time Monday.

The idea had been to fix most of the offensive problems with moves in coach and player free agency. They then would beef up the defense in this weekend’s draft. If the trades match the ’12 production, that should be a heck of a defense for the next few years.

They matched their 2004 run and took six defenders out of the seven picks from rounds two to five, the sweet spot of this year’s get-together in Dallas
Lewis had a wry smile when told the offensive sweep in the seventh round spearheaded by the selection of Woodside cost him a chance to break his record of most defensive players in a draft.
 
But he ended up one shy of ‘04’s seven. Probably because on their next to last pick of the draft Lewis went in on Ole Miss offensive lineman Rod Taylor and endorsed drafting his 23 starts at three different spots.

“Rod Taylor’s a young player from Ole Miss, who’s a big, powerful man,” Lewis said later. “He played offensive guard, and the offensive line coaches think he’s got a chance to come in here and compete, continue to develop and upgrade us there in the offensive line as well.”
But no one on defense minded. By that time the team of Paul Brown, an owner who once proudly proclaimed he was a fire-and-fall back guy of offense, had taken six defenders out of the first eight picks.

6-for-8?

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Bates at the combine.

“No. If I was shooting free throws maybe. Not getting defensive players,” said new defensive coordinator Teryl Austin. “One thing we did think was that were a lot of good football players to be had in the second and third day. I think that’s shown out right now. There are still a lot of good football players on the board. We were fortunate to get the guys who, when our picks came, we thought would really be helpful to our team.”

Hey, P.B. had his moments, too. In 1970 he took seven defensive players in the first eight picks and Mike Reid, Ron Carpenter, and Lemar Parrish were the nucleus of a defense that gave them three post-season berths in the next six seasons.

The Bengals can only hope.

But with the three picks on Friday night they addressed their biggest defensive concerns all in a row. Bates arrives with coverage skills they want to upgrade at safety while Hubbard gives depth to an aging edge. The man picked right behind him, Texas linebacker Malik Jefferson, offers speed and the ability to back up all three spots for a corps missing WILL backer Vontaze Burfict for the first month of the season.

Yet the Bengals kept going for defense Saturday with a sweep of the three in the fifth round that included maybe the two most intriguing picks of the 11. Phillips and Illinois State’s Davontae Harrisare both 4.4 speed guys that can press and while the 5-11, 205-pound Harris has the dimensions and toughness to play in the slot, the 5-10, 193-pound Phillips quietly set the FBS career record in Kalamazoo with 12 return touchdowns.

Those two picks make it hard for an Adam Jones return and if it is, that’s a tough good-bye after eight seasons he gave everything to the cause.

“Phillips is a natural cover guy,” said cornerbacks coach Daronte Jones. “He has a knack for going after the ball, using his hands, and ball disruption. We like his ability after he has the interception and what he can do after, in terms of return ability. He provides that impact that you like.”

Harris believes he can play every position back there and maybe he can play the slot. But …

“That would be something where you see where they can fit. I think he would probably have the ability to do that. We see him more as an outside guy,” Austin said.

Lewis gladly ticked off the needs that were met in that defensive rush.

“When you evaluate Jessie on tape, you see things that we ask him to do within our own defense and on an NFL field in the scheme that he played there at Wake Forest,” Lewis said. “Sam Hubbard comes in here right away and has an opportunity to work into our rotation. With his skill set — his length and ability to play so doggone hard all the time, and he’s got great technique, a great ability to
lock out on blocks — (he can) come in here and compete right away. And with Malik Jefferson, you’ve got another linebacker that can really run, is really physical, and he’s 230 pounds already.

“Our corner we drafted (Davontae Harris), he’s a cover guy with great hands and great feet. So they translate well to the National Football League. Those were the things we were looking to do at defensive tackle too, with explosiveness.”

If it turns out like ’12, they won’t have to be defensive about it.
 
 
 
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2018 NFL Draft: Five teams that added most talent on defense

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  • By Chase Goodbread
  • College Football 24/7 writer
  • Published: May 3, 2018 at 11:31 a.m.
  • Updated: May 3, 2018 at 12:00 p.m.
  • 0 Likes  |  0 Comments

 

2. Cincinnati Bengals

 

Score: 286 points (4 players)
The players (points): 
No. 52 in Brandt's Hot 150: Wake Forest S Jessie Bates (99) 
No. 63: Ohio State DE Sam Hubbard (88) 
No. 68: Texas LB Malik Jefferson (83) 
No. 135: Virginia DT Andrew Brown (16) 
The skinny: The Bengals made additions to every level of their defense with Hot 150 players, from a roaming deep safety in Bates, to an athletic linebacker in Jefferson, to a disruptive end in Hubbard. They allowed 339 yards per game last year, placing them in the middle of the pack league-wide (18th). With this draft class, they should be able to climb that list.

 

 

 

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Anonymous scouts see “prototypical strong safety” and aggressiveness in Bengals second round pick Jessie Bates

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A look at what NFL decision-makers had to say about the Bengals’ second round pick ahead of the NFL Draft.

By Rebecca Toback@Rebecca_Toback  May 6, 2018, 9:00am EDT
 

usa_today_10504274.0.jpgJeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports

Every year, Bob McGinn speaks to scouts, personnel directors, NFL executives and coaches about the top crop of talent in the NFL Draft. As a result, he gets some interesting analysis and opinions on the players and creates a ranking of the top guys at each position.

We’re taking a look at each of the Bengals draft picks who landed in these rankings. Bengals second round pick Jessie Bates was ranked as the No. 5 safety in the draft in the safety rankings. He’s behind Derwin James (the 17th overall pick in the draft), Minkah Fitzpatrick (11th overall pick), Ronnie Harrison (93rd overall pick in Round 3) and Justin Reid (68th overall pick in Round 3). Those four players were ranked in that order on the list, though their actual selections in the draft did not come in that order.

Bates was selected by the Bengals with the No. 54 overall pick in Round 2. Clearly, the Bengals liked him better than Harrison (who the team brought in for a Top-30 visit) and Reid (brother to former 49ers safety Eric Reid who the Bengals hosted on a free agent visit).

Here’s how the rankings work and which safeties landed where:

In the poll, scouts ranked their top five safeties and top five cornerbacks. A first-place vote was worth 5 points, a second was worth 4 points and so on.

Fitzpatrick edged James in points, 60-57. Following, in order, were Alabama’s Ronnie Harrison (27), Stanford’s Justin Reid (20), Wake Forest’s Jessie Bates (14), Texas A&M’s Armani Watts (seven), Penn State’s Marcus Allen (three), Virginia Tech’s Terrell Edmunds(three), Texas’ DeShon Elliott (two), Penn State’s Troy Apke (one) and Tennessee’sRashaan Gaulden (one).

Watts was the 124th overall pick, Allen was the 148th overall pick, Edmunds was selected by theStealers with the 28th overall pick, Elliott was the 190th overall pick, Apke was drafted 109th overall and Gaulden was drafted 85th overall. Clearly, these guys were not drafted in the order in which anonymous scouts ranked them.

Interestingly, the two cornerbacks who the Bengals drafted this year — Darius Phillips of Western Michigan and DaVontae Harris and Illinois State — both received votes for the top 10 at their position, but neither made the top 10 cut in the ranking. That makes sense as Harris was the 17th cornerback selected in the draft and Phillips was the 18th.

So, what did anonymous scouts have to say about the Bengals’ second round pick, Jessie Bates?

“Physical,” said one scout. “Square, strong tackler. He’s like your prototypical strong safety. He’s pretty good.”

Pretty good isn’t particularly high praise for the new Bengals safety.

“Don’t see burst,” a second scout said. “Adequate aggressiveness. Tight straight-line guy. He will tackle.”

The Bengals see a lot more in Bates than these anonymous scouts. They see a high-potential playmaker who can contribute starting on Day 1 and who has an incredibly high football IQ. Bates can read defenses with ease, which is one of his top strengths and one that will benefit him in the NFL.

In his two seasons playing at Wake Forest, Bates had 177 tackles (9.5 for loss), 6 interceptions (2 of which were pick sixes), 10 passes defensed and 2 forced fumbles.

 

 

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I think Hubbard lacks pass rushing moves and Jefferson lacks play recognition outside of actually seeing the ball and getting to it. In other words, I think he can be tricked easily. The game I watched he got himself swallowed up an awful lot. I like Hubbard’s motor and he seems like a good dude but I think he benefited from being on a good DL. Bates brings us a playmaker and speed. Kid can move. Seems like a good addition to the secondary. 

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