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I Know, we are still in the playoffs, For now, a quick distraction. Once the season ends we can fill the tpoic with relevant info.

 

Dane Brugler just ran an updated mock draft which is on the Althletic. The article below is from Paul Dehner in repsonse to that.

 

In Dane Brugler’s first two-round mock draft for 2022, he selected Washington cornerback Trent McDuffie in the first round and Penn State tackle Rasheed Walker in the second round.

As with any draft projection, how free agency unfolds will play a major factor if these are the two positions targeted in the draft. That’s especially true for the Bengals, who have the most projected cap space of any playoff team.

The Bengals’ top priority in the offseason will be adding reinforcements on the offensive line. That could go for any position, with center at the top of the list as Trey Hopkins’ contract expires and he crosses 30 after an uneven season battling back from an ACL tear.

Riley Reiff is also a free agent after his season was cut short by an ankle injury. It would make sense if the Bengals tried to put together the same deal Reiff signed last year (one-year, $7.5 million) as a veteran leader and stopgap and put an eye toward the tackle of the future in the early rounds.

That would make a large, athletic tackle like Walker (6-6, 325) a nice fit to give him time to learn how to be a pro from Reiff and have some time to develop before being forced into the lineup.

The Bengals are not going to punt on 2021 second-round pick Jackson Carman, but he clearly fell out of good graces during a season where he was given every opportunity to assume the starting job but lost it to Hakeem Adeniji midseason. Carman still needs to find maturity, consistency and stay off the ground if he wants to be part of the long-term plan in Cincinnati.

Walker played left tackle for three years at Penn State, so flexibility to swing to either side will be important. But in this scenario, it would make sense if the Bengals started him out on the right side.

Without question, they still don’t have a right tackle of the future in place opposite Jonah Williams, so any way to take a big swing at that hole would make perfect sense.

 
 
The 6-6, 325-pound Rasheed Walker was a Nittany Lions starter for three seasons. (Matthew OHaren / USA Today)

The first-round pick of McDuffie also falls in line with Cincinnati’s needs. Just as important, it falls in line with its history. Director of player personnel Duke Tobin loves first-round corners like Bengals fans loved Saturday’s playoff win.

The Bengals selected a corner in the first round five times from 2006-16. They have not taken a cornerback before the fifth round since. The Bengals have selected a single cornerback since head coach Zac Taylor arrived in 2019 — a seventh-round flyer on Jordan Brown out of South Dakota State, who did not make the team.

They’ve instead opted for free agency to fill the spot. The most significant signing backfired in a massive way. They inked Trae Waynes in 2020 to a three-year, $42 million contract and he missed all of last season and started just four games this year, including Week 18 when the team played all its backups.

He’s healthy for the playoffs but has essentially been relegated to a $14 million gunner on the punt team. There is zero chance he is back next season. The Bengals will save $11 million against the cap by cutting him. He’s the largest cap hit on the team next year.

Eli Apple has filled in admirably and appears to have found a home here, but is a free agent and Cincinnati has turned to midseason waiver wire pickups Vernon Hargreaves and Tre Flowers when injuries occurred on the outside late in the year.

Putting a succession plan in for the future, potentially bumping Apple back to a fourth corner, would go a long way to solidifying an already quality secondary with Chidobe Awuzie and Mike Hilton the definite starters.

Brugler has the Bengals passing on a few quality defensive linemen in Houston’s Logan Hall and Texas A&M hybrid lineman DeMarvin Leal. That makes sense because Cincinnati not only has D.J. Reader, Trey Hendrickson and Sam Hubbard all signed for the long haul, they invested 2021 draft picks in Joseph Ossai, who will return from a season-ending injury in the preseason opener, versatile Cam Sample and seventh-rounder Wyatt Hubert, who also missed the year with an injury.

The only question will be how Cincinnati addresses 3-technique in free agency. Larry Ogunjobi is a free agent and just suffered a foot injury in the playoff win against Las Vegas. B.J. Hill played well, but he’s also a free agent and a rotational piece. They would love to bring back both but it will depend on the price tag. It could be closer to the top of the list if they enter the draft without a real answer at the position.

Two questions would exist with picking McDuffie. One would be his lack of interceptions, but much of that came due to how well he covered his side of the field. Taylor loves cornerbacks who can create turnovers, so that will be an element worth watching. The second issue would be size (5-11, 195). With Awuzie, Hilton and Apple, the Bengals have the market cornered on slightly undersized corners. They could use somebody longer for better matchups against bigger, more physical receivers (look out for A.J. Brown and Julio Jones).

For that reason, Ahmad “Sauce” Gardner (6-3, 200 pounds), potentially staying home out of the University of Cincinnati, would be an ideal fit with his rangy body type, but Brugler has teams falling in love with the Bearcats star and going 12th overall to Minnesota.

If a slip happened there, you’d better believe the Bengals would be calling.

Either way, these two picks are in the cone of probability for spots the Bengals are trying to fill.

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26 minutes ago, sparky151 said:

I want to fix the O-line in free agency and use the draft for defense and maybe some backup receivers or rb.

I agree, seems rookie offensive lineman take time to develop unless they are top of the draft type prospects and some of those still need a little time. Would rather have some vet players that have proven they are good already, and let our rookies this year develop and keep getting better and if they win a job so be it. And pick a cpl in the later rounds to develop. Unless someone falls to us to good to pass up. But prefer to settle the line before the draft to have all options open.

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https://www.cincyjungle.com/2022/1/21/22894361/nfl-mock-draft-2022-mel-kiper-bengals-offensive-lineman

 

Kiper has us taking monster size OT Trevor Penning from Northern Iowa.

Level of college competition?

At 6'7" could D players get into his all body and control him?

Dunno and all speculation at this point, anyway,

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1 hour ago, Le Tigre said:

Maybe I just like the ceiling of the guy, but Isaiah Prince had some pretty good accomplishments at THE. 
 

The proverbial “(now and) future RT is already on the roster”? 

I would never stop drfating OL, ever. There is s shortage of good ones already in the league as a whole so free agents are pricey and often over priced due to simple supply and demand. So draft a lot of them and coach them. 

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4 hours ago, High School Harry said:

https://www.cincyjungle.com/2022/1/21/22894361/nfl-mock-draft-2022-mel-kiper-bengals-offensive-lineman

 

Kiper has us taking monster size OT Trevor Penning from Northern Iowa.

Level of college competition?

At 6'7" could D players get into his all body and control him?

Dunno and all speculation at this point, anyway,

 

6` 7" and 340 pretty close to what Whitworth was at combine 6`7" 334. Whitworth figured it out maybe this guy could too...or not. Could be another Dennis Roland 

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2 minutes ago, CalifBengalfan said:

 

6` 7" and 340 pretty close to what Whitworth was at combine 6`7" 334. Whitworth figured it out maybe this guy could too...or not. Could be another Dennis Roland 

then again, probably a moot point since we won't draft him anyway...

It's all good.

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9 minutes ago, claptonrocks said:

As a RT??...how so?

 


Just call it a hunch at this point. I’ve been looking at these January pre-draft rankings for 35+ years though and I have a pretty good idea about how things typically play out I feel like. It’s more about the competition he faced more than anything. 

Rankings in Jan are pretty much useless….that’s the main takeaway. 

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5 minutes ago, spicoli said:


Just call it a hunch at this point. I’ve been looking at these January pre-draft rankings for 35+ years though and I have a pretty good idea about how things typically play out I feel like. It’s more about the competition he faced more than anything. 

Rankings in Jan are pretty much useless….that’s the main takeaway. 

Yes about Jan rankings..

 

Ive seen Charles Cross as the 3rd OT and some say he could be a bust.

 

I  do like what Ive read about Penning at RT but until combine Ill wait..

 

 

Guess you could say that about all these OTs this year..

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The two best OL in this draft are Ikem Ekwonu and Tyler Linderbaum, IMO. I think they're both 2 of the top 10 overall players in this class.

Whether or not a C gets drafted that high remains to be seen though. I'm gonna say the ceiling for him is top 7 with a floor of 20.

Neal is another guy that I think is a little overrated as well. Likely top 20 player but not top 5 like he's talked about now. 

Kenyon Green would be my guy right now, on Jan21. He's likely to go higher when it's all said and done however.

That's the price for picking 32nd overall I guess. Oh well.

Just my 2 cents.

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12 hours ago, Le Tigre said:

Maybe I just like the ceiling of the guy, but Isaiah Prince had some pretty good accomplishments at THE. 
 

The proverbial “(now and) future RT is already on the roster”? 

God I hope not..

 

I would see it as standing pat  to improve the RT position..

 

The leftside of the line is allright..

From center to RT is a great concern..

 

Draft or free agency is a must in my mind to kickstart the right side to respectability which right now there is none..at all..

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Well.  Planning ahead, the 5th year option is now close to franchise tag price. So back to back years joe and Chase are getting huge raises in a couple years. So a combo of vets and draft picks would be ideal for the line. Draft picks cost less. And fix it longer (in theory). So ignoring it via the draft more years make us still need to spent likely double on free agents but several salaries start to balloon on the roster. Same with corners. If they play well their next paydays will be big. If not they need replaced. We need to hit a good stride of drafting contributors and pricing guys off the team. Kc nailed some draft picks but they were in cap hell due to OL spending and mahomes contract. 
 

I hope to avoid that as well. 

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