Cincinnati Bengals: 3 Reactions to John Ross trade rumors

The Cincinnati Bengals and wide receiver John Ross appear set for a split. Here are some thoughts on the matter.

According to sources in contact with Draft Analyst.com’s Tony Pauline and NFL.com’s Ian Rapaport, it appears that John Ross is on the outs with the franchise that drafted him ninth overall in the 2017 NFL draft.

The Bengals are planning to field offers at the NFL Combine, and with both sides apparently ready to welcome a fresh start with open arms, seeing him move on to another franchise sometime during this offseason appears likely.

Here are some initial thoughts on the situation.

Another High Draft Pick Wasted

From 2011-15, Cincinnati made the playoffs every year. Perhaps the biggest part of that success was the insistence by the franchise to favor building through the draft. Outside of maybe the Green Bay Packers, arguably no team relied heavier on it to find and sustain success during that span.

The end of those yearly postseason trips coincides directly with Cincinnati all of a sudden doing much worse in terms of their draft success — especially at the top. The first 10 seasons of Marvin Lewis’ tenure saw the team select quality players more often than not in the first round of a given year’s draft.

Carson Palmer was a franchise-caliber passer. A.J. Green has been a top-five receiver (when healthy) since the moment he was drafted. Johnathan Joseph and Leon Hall were great cornerbacks for the Bengals. Even when they weren’t selecting stars, players like Andre Smith, Kevin Zeitler, Jermaine Gresham, and Dre Kirkpatrick were useful pieces for successful teams.

Unfortunately, the final stretch of Lewis’ tenure saw the team’s first round prowess disappear. Tyler Eifert is good when healthy, but has missed more games than he’s played as a professional. Darqueze Dennard didn’t see a notable amount of snaps until his fourth season, and has maybe one year of decent production under his belt. Cedric Ogbuehi may be one of the worst draft picks ever made by the team, period. Billy Price was barely able to get on the field as a rookie, much less play well.

Ross might be the biggest disappointment of them all. His speed was record setting at the combine the year he was drafted (4.22-second 40-yard dash); the overriding hope was that his ability to blaze down the field would give a much-needed deep threat dimension to Cincinnati’s offense alongside the over-the-middle prowess of Eifert and the general excellence of Green.

Two years in, he’s barely shown glimpses of that potential. Injuries essentially rendered his rookie season dead on arrival. His second year let him show off some crafty short-range elusiveness (four of his seven touchdown catches were from 2-3 yards out, and another was from just six yards away), but he had a horrible catch rate (caught 21 of 58 targets; 36.2 percent) and had a measly three catches of 20+ yards (his longest? 39, on a touchdown against Atlanta).

For someone drafted higher by this team than anyone since Green was picked fourth overall in 2011, that is a pretty underwhelming return on investment.