2017 NFL Draft Grades: Cincinnati Bengals Day 2 Picks

Day 1 of the 2017 NFL Draft brought some much-needed excitement to the Cincinnati Bengals, but Day 2 may turn out to be even more important and impactful.

Coming into the 2017 NFL Draft, the Cincinnati Bengals had dire needs in a lot of spots. Their defensive line has gone from their defensive catalyst to a middling afterthought in just a couple seasons. Their offensive line was already a sieve during the 2016 season, and has since lost their best two players to free agency. The receiving group was for numerous reasons a limited group beyond A.J. Green. The running back spot was a lot stronger on paper than in reality.

Put those concerns with the relative lack of dynamic talents across the roster, and this team wasn’t looking primed for anything but disappointment. That was before the draft, however. We are only three rounds in, and it appears a lot of their major problems have quickly been addressed.

I already went over what the addition of John Ross on Day 1 could mean for the offense. They didn’t sit on their laurels with one early improvement though. With their second round selection, they addressed their underwhelming backfield by going out and grabbing Joe Mixon.

Round 2, Pick 48 (via Vikings): Joe Mixon, RB – Oklahoma

This isn’t quite the pick I was expecting, but it shouldn’t be all that surprising. Though offensive line is surely a bigger hole, the fact is this draft just doesn’t have many highly-rated guys there. It’ll have to be addressed at some point, but that shouldn’t make a team desperately reach out for a guy at that spot when they can pick up someone at another position who can make a more positive impact.

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Mixon may have those off-field issues attached to him, but the on-field ability can’t be questioned. There’s a reason that, even with video evidence of him punching a woman (and the PR nightmare inherently attached to having that guy join your team), that organizations still considered him worth an early-round selection.

His explosive running style and abilities garnered a Le’Veon Bell comparison from Lance Zierlein on NFL.com. For a team which has to face that guy twice a year, the opportunity to add someone who is anything like him as a player had to be appetizing.

Even if he comes nowhere close to that level, his skills portend to him being something the Bengals have sorely lacked at the position: a three-down back. Since 2014, they’ve been tied down to having to use a rotation due to the deficiencies to certain areas in the games of Giovani Bernard and Jeremy Hill. Bernard can catch well, but taking the ball up the middle isn’t in his repertoire. Hill can bang in the middle, but offers little in most other aspects.

If those two aspects were combined into one guy, they’d be a monstrous matchup. They are separate players, however, which limits that effectiveness and forces them to show their hand to a certain degree with their playcalling. Plus, while those characteristics have been there on paper, neither of the two has ever really been able to play consistently well across a full season.

Mixon isn’t a perfect player, but he does at least have the ability in him to be a lead guy on a level neither of his predecessors could ever hope to be.

As for his off-field issues, there’s few places more willing and able to open their arms to players with damaging baggage than these Cincinnati Bengals. From players like Chris Henry and Odell Thurman to Adam Jones and Vontaze Burfict, there have been few franchises that take chances on character concerns the way they do, and often they help those players become better, more mature members of society during their tenures with the team. Hopefully that is the case for Mixon as well.