Cincinnati Bengals draft goes down as one of the worst

By Ryan Ratty | May 3, 2015

The Cincinnati Bengals needed to do well in the 2015 NFL Draft to help their chances of going further in the playoffs. However, their draft did not go as planned.

Entering the 2015 NFL Draft, the Cincinnati Bengals were one of the tougher teams to predict. Each team has holes, but the Bengals had plenty and when they were on the clock, the Bengals would have to had reach for a player to fill a hole. They did that in the first round with Cedric Ogbuehi. An ACL injury obviously hurt Ogbuehi’s draft stock, but there was a thought that he would be the top offensive tackle in this year’s draft if he were healthy. Nevertheless, the question remains, “will Ogbuehi be ready for training camp?”

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I understand that left tackle Andrew Whitworth’s contract is up at the end of the 2015 and he may very well retire after the season, but it’s yet to be seen how Ogbuehi will help in the short term. In the second round, the Bengals then took another offensive tackle in Jake Fisher.

The Bengals currently have Andre Smith to play the position, but he’s also in the last year of his deal. Fisher is extremely athletic and perfect for a zone-blocking scheme, so it’s really only a matter until he plays the right tackle position.

The questions don’t end there though. In the third, they reached for tight end Tyler Kroft. Given their needs, the Bengals had Tyler Eifert and Jermaine Gresham to man the positions, so it’s hard to vouch for a pick given that the player was primarily used as a run-blocking tight end in college.

Despite the three questionable picks, the Bengals did finish well in this year’s draft by adding Paul Dawson, Josh, Marcus Hardison, C.J. Uzomah, Derron Smith, and Mario Alford. They got all these players at an excellent value. In 2014, the Bengals had only 20 sacks on the quarterback.

While that number will likely improve with the addition of Michael Johnson, who will be returning to the team after a one-year hiatus, the Bengals waited until the end of the fourth round to bring in a defensive tackle.

It seems like forever that Marvin Lewis has been the head coach of the Bengals. In his 12-year tenure with the Bengals, Lewis has been to the playoffs on six occasions and he’s never won a game. That’s 0-6 in the postseason.

Sure Andy Dalton has been to the playoffs each year of his career, but the Bengals are going to be pretenders until they can prove to the rest of the teams in the NFL that they can be taken seriously in the postseason.

To win a postseason game in 2015, the Bengals needed to get immediate contribution from their draft picks. After drafting two players that will likely make the most of their impact in Cincinnati after 2016, the Bengals really failed to do that and there’s a reason why their draft class was one of the worsts.

The Bengals failed to add top-tier talent and they failed to really fill their needs. If the duo of Dalton and Lewis loses again, it should be said that the blame will not entirely fall upon their shoulders. Management needs to improve.

Next: Josh Shaw an excellent pick for Cincinnati Bengals

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