Cincinnati Bengals: Ranking the last 15 NFL Draft classes, No. 15-11
By Kenn Korb
As the 2018 NFL draft approaches, let’s look back at all the drafts by the Cincinnati Bengals in the Marvin Lewis era — starting with the five worst.
In just a few days, we will see the 2018 NFL Draft finally take place. While there have been some surprising moves by way of trade and free agency by the team so far this offseason, it is in the draft where the Cincinnati Bengals have always put the vast majority of their focus and energy. Simply put, this is their time of year.
The draft this year will be the 16th in the Marvin Lewis era. With 15 prior drafts in his tenure, now would be a good time to look back at just how well the team navigated their most important avenue for talent.
Thus, we’ll rank the last 15 classes, starting with the five worst. But first, we determine the ranking process.
The Ranking Process
As with any kind of rankings, there must be some sort of system being used, lest we end up with everything relying purely on a loose assortment of statements which don’t actually provide a cohesive argument.
For this particular exercise, I’ve decided to work with a simple point system.
- Five points are awarded for each player who can either be considered a Hall of Famer, Pro Bowler, or would generally be considered an elite contributor in their time with the team.
- Three points are awarded for each player who can be classified as a multi-year starter, or essentially played an equivalent role in that time.
- One point is awarded for players who were able to be a useful depth piece and sizable contributor for at least one season.
- Zero points are given to players who either never catch on with the team or fail to make a notable impact in their time with the team.
These values will be applied to every player taken by Cincinnati in every draft they’ve had since the 2003 season. Then, those values will be added up for each season. The final tallies for each season are subsequently ordered from lowest to highest. Ties (of which there are plenty) are broken with an eye towards the elite players mattering more, but ultimately are left up to my own discretion.
We begin this exercise looking at the five worst drafts completed by this team, starting with the absolute worst selection.
15. 2015
Number of Draft Picks: 9 (one first round pick, one second, two third, two fourth, one fifth, one sixth, one seventh)
Total Points: 5 (five depth pieces)
The end of the 2014 season saw Cincinnati come up short in the playoffs for the fourth season in a row, but that did not mean this squad was at the end of their rope quite yet. In fact, the team was just about to field their best team in the Andy Dalton era. If not for an unfortunate hand injury to Dalton, the 2015 team may have finally broken through with a playoff victory (if not more).
The team clearly understood they had plenty of talent in tow by the time that year’s draft came around, and their draft strategy shows they were using this one with a major eye to the future at multiple positions.
Unfortunately, those moves haven’t exactly worked out as needed. Cedric Ogbuehi and Jake Fisher were added back-to-back in the first two rounds to be the future tackles for years to come; instead, neither has managed to do anything but disappoint in three seasons. It isn’t as if they haven’t been given a fair shot, either.
They each got a chance at the right tackle spot in 2016 while Andrew Whitworth was still around, and both were given plenty of opportunity after he was allowed to leave in the 2017 offseason. In their chances, each has only proven to be a sieve to exploit, and one of them (Fisher, due to an irregular heartbeat) may be at risk of not even continuing his career at all.
With the first two picks bombing so spectacularly, this draft has really been a prime culprit in why the team has fallen short of the playoffs the past two seasons. It hasn’t been a complete wash — their selections of Tyler Kroft and C.J. Uzomah have done a decent job as the backup tight ends the past three years, while Josh Shaw has at least put in a decent year in 2016 as a slot cornerback — but this is about as empty of a draft as it gets.
The fact that the team barely came away with any useful pieces while having extra third and fourth round selections to work with points to just how much of a crapshoot the draft can be, even for the teams which tend to be better at it than most.