Cincinnati Bengals: Reaction to Billy Price pick in 2018 NFL Draft

A quick reaction to the Cincinnati Bengals’ first-round selection in the 2018 NFL Draft after taking Ohio State center Billy Price at No. 21.

The Cincinnati Bengals came into this draft with plenty of needs, but none outweighed fixing their offensive line.

During the playoff years of the Andy Dalton era (2011-15), this team was bonded together on offense by the cohesion of that group. Four times in that five season span, Cincinnati gave up at worst the eighth-fewest sacks to their opposition. The offense, while only elite for a single season in that time, was able to stay afloat due heavily to a line which kept Dalton on his feet and his sight lines free.

The past two seasons have seen essentially all of that stability come to a crashing halt. All of a sudden, that comfortable pocket has been as chaotic as possible. The team gave up 41 sacks in 2016, and then another 40 last year.

Everything they banked on working in that time failed. Tackles Cedric Ogbuehi and Jake Fisher were the first two selections of their 2015 draft class; three years later, both are undisputed busts. Andrew Whitworth and Kevin Zeitler were the only bright spots for the line after 2016 and both in line for huge contracts after the season; rather than spend big to keep either, the team let both leave in free agency. Cheap replacements and retreads were brought in — both health and inability kept them from making a positive impact.

This offseason, they could not ignore the position again. Only left guard Clint Boling and new left tackle Cordy Glenn have any sort of claim to a starting spot from the players still around. With Russell Bodine leaving for Buffalo, that left center, right guard and right tackle all needing a new face.

The selection of Price should fix at least one of those areas. Even had Bodine stuck around, it would have been a no-brainer to advocate for Cincinnati to pick for a guy at his spot if that’s who was best available, and Price definitely projects as someone who’ll be more effective. His draft profile is full of exciting descriptors: “freaky explosiveness”, “highly intelligent”, “excellent quickness”. He gets compared to LeCharles Bentley, who was one of the more athletically gifted centers the league had seen before staph infections ruined his career.

The worry with Price are the sort of things which are much more fixable than his predecessor’s problems. Still, it will need to be fixed for him to become worthy of his draft position. He has a tendency to lunge at his opposition, possibly connected to his somewhat lacking length. He can get impatient, which can be used against him — particularly on long-developing plays. He seems to be a strong-willed individual. Rightly or wrongly, that always ends up as a red flag in a league which hates cogs who don’t fit perfectly in their machine.

Next: NFL Draft 2018: Grades for each first-round pick

The weight of those flaws is essentially grasping at straws here, though. His biggest problem was probably that he came away with a torn pectoral muscle during the NFL combine. That could have been the sort of issue to send a prospect tumbling down the draft board, but it ended up only being a partial tear.

Price should be a quality center right off the bat for Cincinnati, giving them an answer for three of their line spots. With the remaining cache of draft picks (10 remaining), they should be more than capable of adding a couple more names into their offensive line mix.