Draft classes can build up, tear down Bengals' seasons

Life in the Bengals front office was good in 2015.

Despite a fourth-consecutive playoff loss, a young nucleus of players was developing into one of the deepest rosters in the NFL. They extended the quarterback and boasted one of the game’s best receivers.

The defense continued to play at a top-10 level, and all signs pointed to a potentially special 2015 season.

Plus, the Bengals’ draft that year set up to open the next window for this franchise. Compensatory picks created an extra selection in the third and fourth rounds. Piling up mid-round picks in the past produced names like Michael Johnson and Geno Atkins, Marvin Jones and Mohamed Sanu.

Director of player personnel Duke Tobin and the Bengals staff had put together a string of five drafts unrivaled in top-to-bottom productivity in franchise history.

Seemed as though the rich were getting richer.

Both on the field and off it, life changes fast in the NFL. The current Bengals – 11-16-1 the last two seasons– stand as living proof.

In the world of the draft-and-develop philosophy, it can change in one weekend. For both good and bad. Unproductive drafts have ripple effects. They close windows. Home run classes blow them open. And a personnel department must always be ready to adjust accordingly.

Partly the 2014 draft class and definitely the 2015 class own responsibility for the Bengals’ current situation. It’s unfair to think any personnel staff could continue on the blistering pace the Bengals did from 2009-13 on draft weekends. But nonetheless they cause problems when the return to ordinary unfolds.

“It’s hard to predict the future with these guys,” Tobin said. “The expectation everyone is going to come in and be a Pro Bowler and achieve the results you want to achieve isn’t realistic. There’s a lot of guys that maybe haven’t done it as much as we would have liked for them to have done at this point, but we are not giving up on them. As long as they are here they are going to be coached hard and expected to contribute.”

In 2015, with tackles Andre Smith and Andrew Whitworth entering the back side of their careers and Jones/Sanu both about to enter free agency, offensive tackle and receiver were at the top of the team’s priority list.

Depth at tight end and safety followed with Jermaine Gresham leaving and uncertainty around the future of George Iloka and Reggie Nelson entering contract years. Shawn Williams had yet to be a regular starter.

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The Bengals went aggressive at their offensive tackle concern early, the rest of the draft fell this way and here’s what the Bengals have gained:

OL Cedric Ogbuehi (starting, been benched/put in a rotation two straight seasons)

(starting, been benched/put in a rotation two straight seasons) OL Jake Fisher (started, put into a tackle rotation this year/now on IR)

(started, put into a tackle rotation this year/now on IR) TE Tyler Kroft (backup to Tyler Eifert, some production as starter in his absence)

(backup to Tyler Eifert, some production as starter in his absence) LB PJ Dawson (cut/2016 and 2017)

(cut/2016 and 2017) CB Josh Shaw (utility backup defensive back)

(utility backup defensive back) DL Marcus Hardison (cut/2017)

(cut/2017) TE C.J. Uzomah (third string tight end)

(third string tight end) S Derron Smith (waived this season)

(waived this season) WR Mario Alford (waived)

No college free agents from that season are currently on the Bengals roster. Nine picks produced zero top starters. No Pro Bowls.

And there’s a good chance only Kroft receives a second contract with the team – which would be modest by tight end standards. You could hear an argument for Fisher or Ogbuehi earning a deal if they ever turn the corner. They haven’t yet and the clock nears midnight for those decisions.

Getting only minor contributions from a string of mid-round picks and not finding a receiver have ripple effects. They force the hand in priorities of future drafts and the need to alter the always small free-agent strategy.

Marvin Lewis said he talks to his son, Marcus, who is on the Bengals staff as a defensive assistant, about how some players just need a change of scenery to bring out of them what the Bengals saw when drafting. Players not succeeding in Cincinnati doesn’t make those picks indefensible.

For example, he still holds out hope for Dawson, currently on the Seahawks practice squad.

“He will get it now, but it took him too long (here),” Lewis said. “Just like Ahmad Brooks. He’s still playing. He couldn’t quite get it here. But when you hit the street there is a different perspective that comes about and some times guys need that … sometimes a guy needs a change of scenery to figure it out. That’s not a bad thing.”

Though, it’s not great for the drafting team and can make life difficult on the coach. Playing the game between giving young players an opportunity to prove themselves for the long run or possibly failing and contributing to losses in the short term becomes the challenging balance for the head coach.

“The key element is to not force a square peg in a round hole,” Lewis said. “Looking to the next better player – rather than this position or that position – is important. Along with that comes responsibility of us as coaches, as me to ownership a lot of times. They want to see the development. As a position coach you’d like to have the guy in your room for 10 years.”

The current Bengals’ problems connect to a slightly lesser degree to the 2014 draft. First-round pick Darqueze Dennard is breaking thought and a lynch-pin of the future about to make major dollars. Will Russell Bodine be back? Up in the air. AJ McCarron proved valuable, but spent the vast majority of his time here holding a clipboard. Ryan Hewitt and Trey Hopkins were 2014 college free agent success stories, but not Pro Bowl game-changers. Otherwise, everybody else looks likely to be gone or returned in a diminished role after this year.

Dennard (starter, fifth-year option picked up)

(starter, fifth-year option picked up) Jeremy Hill (free agent, likely landing elsewhere)

(free agent, likely landing elsewhere) Will Clarke (waived, in Tampa Bay)

(waived, in Tampa Bay) Russell Bodine (four-year starter)

(four-year starter) AJ McCarron (backup QB, free agent likely landing elsewhere)

(backup QB, free agent likely landing elsewhere) Marquis Flowers (traded to New England)

(traded to New England) James Wright (waived)

(waived) Lavelle Westbrooks (waived)

That’s why when people talk about the Cincinnati run of success from 2011-15, making five consecutive playoffs with one of the league’s most envied rosters, just look back at drafts from 2009-13.

Those years produced significant second contracts to the following:

2009: Andre Smith, Rey Maualuga, Michael Johnson (fifth-year option, top of free agency with Bucs, return), Kevin Huber

Andre Smith, Rey Maualuga, Michael Johnson (fifth-year option, top of free agency with Bucs, return), Kevin Huber 2010: Carlos Dunlap, Geno Atkins, Vinny Rey

Carlos Dunlap, Geno Atkins, Vinny Rey 2011: AJ Green, Andy Dalton, Clint Boling

AJ Green, Andy Dalton, Clint Boling 2012: Dre Kirkpatrick, George Iloka, Vontaze Burfict, Kevin Zeitler (re-set guard market with Browns), Marvin Jones (top dollar with Lions), Mo Sanu (near top of free agency with Falcons)

Dre Kirkpatrick, George Iloka, Vontaze Burfict, Kevin Zeitler (re-set guard market with Browns), Marvin Jones (top dollar with Lions), Mo Sanu (near top of free agency with Falcons) 2013: Tyler Eifert (fifth-year option), Giovani Bernard, Shawn Williams

Comparing those to the couple of second contracts to be yielded out of the 2014 and 2015 drafts shows the chasm between the two time periods and how things change.

You’re allowed to not have an incredible draft every year. Unavoidable. But when your franchise philosophy centers around drafting and developing and only using free agency as a supplementary piece, then when less fruitful drafts like 2014 and 2015 happen, seasons like 2016 and 2017 do as well.

You can’t let those seasons affect the draft strategy of not reaching for position in order to sacrifice talent, Tobin is sure to point out. The league changes too much. Finding your way out of a disappointing season or disappointing draft is about staying true to how you operate.

“There’s very few positions you just need one guy at anyway,” he said “Even if you have a good one, you are still going to need another one eventually. It might be tomorrow, it might be three years from now. If the guy is worthy of the pick from the ability standpoint it’s hard to drop down a level of talent than someone more readily available as a need today, when tomorrow you might be thinking, boy, wish we would have taken that other guy, we had an injury or whatever.”

The hope is the philosophy worked because the same way two drafts can close playoff windows, early returns on the 2016 and 2017 drafts look like the type to blow the windows back open.

In 2016, William Jackson III, Nick Vigil, Andrew Billings and Clayton Fejedelem make for a nice percentage of hits on a seven-man draft. And others like Tyler Boyd still have potential to be more impactful.

The 2017 draft looks like a replica of the 2012 haul filled with future stars and steals. Certainly no class has made a more instant impact than this one.

While those in the media and on the outside can compartmentalize the draft classes, Tobin doesn’t view them that way.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “We feel good about the talent we have here. We feel good about the roster. We feel good about some of the young guys who are going to come on for us in the future. We don’t look at it as how did the draft class do. We look at it as how is our team doing as a total, no matter how they got here. Whether they got here as a college free agent or unrestricted free agent or we traded for them. It’s the whole picture we look at. It’s not just the ’15 draft or ’12 draft, that’s a small piece of the sum total.”

That’s how life works in the NFL and with personnel. Even when you look to be on top of the world, it can quickly change. Even when you look to be on the bottom, you can immediately rise.

When living the way the Bengals and many other draft-and-develop teams do, you are always one or two draft classes away from anything.

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