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round? Let's review the results from round two of our first round pick bracket.
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locked On podcast network. Your team every day. What up, Bengals fans,
and welcome to another episode of the Lockdown Bengals Podcast. I'm your host,
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make sure you let us know that we're your first listen. Nice to know
that that's hitting home for some of you. Today, we're going to get
into the results from round two of our first round pick bracket, and some
people have some pretty strong opinions about the positions the Bengals need to draft and
when they need to draft. Then we're going to talk about wide receiver and
why that makes sense for the Bengals on Day two more than anything else potentially
in this year's draft. Today's episode sponsored by FanDuel. Right now, you
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fandel dot com. Slash locked On and James, we're into the final four
of the first round pick bracket, the Elite eight matchups. We started in
the Sweet sixteen, by the way, but the Elite eight matchups have completed,
and we know now that it will be three offensive trench players and Brock
Bowers in the final four. I'll start here. I'm totally fine with it.
I'm totally fine with getting Joe Burrow help in one way or another.
I'm never going to debate that. I'm not with the logic of it.
And this is what the bracket has come to, and it's going to be
either a high end offensive lineman in the Bengals eyes or at least in Locked
On Bengals listeners eyes, or Brock Bauers, who is by far and away,
by far and away, the top tight end in this class. And
I think that's a huge cliff and that's certainly an argument alone. If you
want to address tight end, get the best one who would have been the
best one in last year's draft, but you don't have the depth that last
year's draft had. So that said, I'm not shocked that these are the
final four. At the same time, I do think that it is a
little surprising, and part of it could be seting, like we've talked about
before we started recording. But no Byron Murphy, No John Newton, and
Johnny Newton's the one that I think is a big surprise because he is I
think he's a huge, huge favorite on social media, specifically Bengals Twitter,
and this poll was conducted on Bengals Twitter, and so for him to go
down, it just shows you where Bengals fans are from an offensive line thirst
standpoint. The thirst is real and they're going all in to potentially help the
Bengals in the trenches. And to be fair, there were a lot of
offensive linemen in this bracket from the start, Ol Graham, Barton, Troy
Fatanu, JP J Jackson, Powers Johnson, J. C. Latham,
Tally Fuaga, Amarius Vans, Tyler Geiton. There are a lot of first
rounds because there are a lot of first round offensive linemen in this draft,
that's right, Yeah, And for the most part in the first round,
the tackles just blew their opposition away, the exception to that being brock Powers
demolishing Tyler Geiton in a ninety five to five two fifteen matchup. And like
you said, maybe the seeding is a problem here. I'm not a professional
seater. Most of this is very arbitrary. The one in two and sixteen
and fifteen seeds are somewhat deliberately picked. And outside of that, it was
like, let's make interesting matchups. Some of them apparently were only interesting to
me, judging from the way some of the voting went, like the eighty
eight twelve Johnny Newton, Terry and Arnold matchup in the first round that I
thought would be closer, or as we discussed previously, the Brian Thomas junior
upset of Quenya Mitchell fifty seven to forty three in a pretty surprising decision I
thought from Bengals Twitter. But that's well behind us at this point and the
second round matchups. Let's start with the top of the bracket here. The
top of the bracket ended up much easier, which my bad lesson learned.
We'll fix this next year. We'll try to try to spread this out more
if we can. But the top is going to be harder. When it's
picked thirty two, it is going to be harder. Might have to expand
the field a bit. Yeah, it was I waffle between starting with eight,
twelve and sixteen in the first place here and like giving some guys or
even like fourteen, giving two first round byes and figuring it out from there,
just because I was trying to figure out how many players were realistic,
because you don't want to go too high and include Joe Wald and have Joe
Walt just run away with it. Well, yeah, no, you were
right. I'm not debating sixteen. I'm just saying if they're picking thirty two
next year, yeah, then it'll probably be a wider net, that's all.
And maybe it might be two for number thirty two. Yeah, it's
just a little bit challenging to figure out, you know, where to start,
where to finish, because like, if you include I don't know,
who's a Notre Dame Tackle Fisher in here? A point, what's the point
of Blake Fisher being on here? You know? What I mean. No,
But but he would be in the round two bracket. Yeah, right,
And so he would be someone if they were take picking thirty two.
We've gone down in this rabbit hole. I'm not just fully commit. If
they were picking thirty two, he's probably included, right, just because maybe
I think I like him more than Geydon. So there you go. There
you want to take? Is it isn't? I think it is. I
think he'll be better. I think he'll be better than Guiden. I think
it's a take. I think Patrick Palm might be better than Guiton too,
the guy you hate pp I think I think also perhaps a take, but
for sure I take so the top of the bracket here only for Shanu,
Brian Thomas Junior, and Troy Fatana, J C. Latham, Mashanhu beating
Thomas seventy four percent to twenty six percent, after rounding Fatanu beating Latham sixty
one percent to thirty nine percent. Is this in line with your voting,
James, or did you vote differently on either of these? No, this
is in line, and I think it's close with Latham. And and that's
that's the one where it's it's really, really close, but it was in
line. Let me make sure I'm ninety nine percent sure it was online.
No, it wasn't. I lied. I voted for Latham, not Troy
Fatanu. And I think it's the non testing element of it that that scared
some people away. I think for what the Bengals want to do, and
we know what they want to do, they want to be this big,
powerful offensive line. I think JC Latham fits that. Troy Fatanu. Are
they going to use him at tackle right away or are they going to plug
him in at guard and then teach him tackle next year? I don't know.
I think that that would be an interesting dynamic with Latham. I think
they would just put him at right tackle and let him cook. I think
one question about Fatanu as well, for any NFL team interested in drafting Fatanu,
is do they believe he can play tackle? I know he played tackle
in college. A lot of people are saying he's going to be best served
in the NFL at guard. There are a lot of very smart evaluators who
think that. I think they're NFL teams who are asking that question and or
have asked that question and have made up their mind this is a guard.
This is a tackle. This is a guard with you know, Joe Toney
kind of flexibility where if we're desperate for a tackle, we can move them
to tackle, but that's not your plan A. And so I think that
is an interesting element of the Fatanu Lathan debate. I think Latham is a
right tackle. I think he has a size for it. I know he
didn't test. I think he has I think he has requisite movement ability forward
even though he's not a great athlete. Obviously if he was a great athlete,
he would have tested. But I think he has adequate athleticism. And
if you listen to Frank Pollock talk about these guys, he was talking about
all of these first round guys with Dave Lapham, he would tell you that
jac Latham has better than expected athleticism for a guy that's that big, not
not Amarus Mims level athleticism for a guy that's that big, but certainly better
than average for a three hundred and forty pounder with great length and good height
to go with it. And so that one is a little bit surprising,
and that the fans opted for a guy with guard very high guard potential in
the profile and some questions as to whether or not he can play tackle over
the guy that I think is a true tackle. But Forshano over Thomas,
no shock at all there. I think I'm maybe surprised that Thomas even did
as well as he did seventy four to twenty six instead of like a eighty
five fifteen or something like that. There's some real Brian Thomas fans out there
on Bengals Twitter. Yeah, and it's weird that I'm not like leading the
charge. Not that I don't like Brian Thomas, but it's weird that I'm
not like, hey, wide receiver at eighteen, but I'm really not wide
receiver at eighteen. More on that coming up. What we need to continue
our bracket conversation up next, and that's exactly what we're going to do right
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Locked On podcast network your team every day. So the first Final four matchup
the Elite eight matchups we just discussed Old Fashanu Troy Fatanu. That one should
be interesting. Both of those guys had easier paths than the guys were about
to talk about. Fatanu beating Verse in the first round eighty three seventeen and
Lathaman in the second round sixty one to thirty nine. Fashanu blowing away Graham
Barton and then Brian Thomas. So that's our top top half of the bracket.
In the bottom of the bracket, we had Tally Fuaga and Johnny Newton
and the tightest matchup so far period a fifty three to forty seven victory for
Fuaga, who advances to the Final four. And then a pretty close matchup
as well between Brock Bauers and Byron Murphy fifty eight forty two. That's one
of the closer matchups that we've had, the third closest in fact matchup so
far. So Bowers beating Geiton, beating Murphy, Murphy who edged Mims in
the first round. That was one of the more controversial according to my replies
on Twitter, rulings of the first round or elections of the first round,
Newton beating Arnold, Fuaga beating Latsu, and then Fuaga beating Newton fifty three
to forty seven. Are these align with how you voted, James? I
assume you voted for brock Bowers here. Yeahly, And I voted for Fuaga
too. And it's that one's close, right, that one's really close,
and you almost break the tie with all right, elite and elite one can
protect Joe Burrow, and he somehow fell to eighteen, and you weren't necessarily
expecting him to because I don't expect Fuaga to be there at eighteen. Johnny
Newton, I think he could be there because the NFL is weird, but
I think just weird with interior defensive tackles in general. But there are offensive
linemen. This isn't just a default to the offensive line. There are offensive
Linemen. I would pass on for Johnny Newton, Troy Fatanu being one of
them. For example, if those two guys have been matched up, I
would have probably taken Johnny Newton. So this isn't strictly all right, it's
an offensive tackle take him, but Fuaga is up there enough to where I
think it's close. Even if Newton's a little higher on your board. Let's
say he's seventh and Fuegas tenth. All right, well there's a tiebreaker there,
and I think the tie breaker is Joe Burrow close. I voted for
Fuaga and then yeah, I mean, you know me brock Bowers all day
long over Byron Murphy. By the way, I voted for Amarus Mims over
Byron Murphy. And I'm comfortable saying that, and would certainly take Mims over
Murphy. And I don't hate Murphy. I just think that it's it's interesting,
like the discourse around him and the discussion at least here in Cincinnati,
where it's like, oh, we'll solve your defensive line issues, and I'm
not sure he does that. Like people have discussed, oh, well,
Johnny Newton in size and all of those things. Well, Byron Murphy's smaller,
and so are we sure he's going to be this just game changing interior
defensive lineman, Because if he's not that, I don't want him at eighteen.
And I do think there's some depth there. And so for brock Bowers,
there isn't depth a tight end in my opinion in this draft, he's
far and away not only the best, but one of the best we've seen
in quite some time. I'll take him over Byron Murphy because I think you
can add defensive lineman later in the draft that will give you maybe not what
Murphy is going to give you, but close to it. Yeah, I
don't think there's the depth in terms of there's a falloff. I guess,
like defensive tackle in this class very top heavy. There are some guys that
should be good NFL players after Murphy and Newton. But you know, also
true for tight end, not a deep tight end class at all. It's
a pretty bad tight end class outside of black Powers and a handful of guys.
There might be some contributors, but the consensus is it's a pretty bad
tight end class. But it's not a great defensive tackle class. There are
just more guys later that can help, and that is just a positional value
thing like do you care about tight end? And obviously the answer for you
is yes, right, especially when it's a guy like Bowers who is a
run after catch guy, a matchup problem. He can block a little bit.
He's not going to be totally mismatched as a blocker. Does have maybe
slight size concerns if you're looking for the elite prototypical does everything tight end like,
He's not going to come in and be Rob Gronkowski. We saw them
beside each other on radio wrote at the Super Bowl. They're slightly different body
types to put that nicely, But doesn't mean he can't come in and be
an adequate blocker and be a mismatch problem and use that really good tight end
athleticism that he possesses and ability and feel for the game to be a game
changing weapon in the NFL. The question with Bowers is the same question that
plagues every single tight end discussed in the first round. Is what makes him
different from the other tight ends in the first round? What makes him worth
that pick, Especially when you start to think about things like surplus value in
terms of how much are you saving compared to a top end tight end contract
when you draft a tight end in the first round and the potential learning curve
that tight ends sometimes have coming into the league. And you know, people
might talk about Kyle Pitts, who still I think could be good if he
was in the right offense and started his career quite well, or t J.
Hawkinson or Noah Fant as other first round tight ends you could reminisce all
the way back to Tyler Riffert, who when Tyler Riffert was healthy, was
a game changing tight end for the Cincinnati Bengals before he had his career derailed
by injuries. But those are narratives I think that have to be combated and
honestly discussed even in the war room when you think about taking a tight end
in the first round. And that applies to Brock Powers too, sure,
and I think it should apply to Byron Murphy too. That's the element here.
Are we sure he's a game wrecker? I don't think so. I
think Johnny Newton is potentially, I'm not sure Byron Murphy is. And so
could Brock Powers be a game changer? I think that's more likely than Byron
Murphy. Now, now, the positional value thing I get it, and
that's kind of what broke the tie last year. I think with a Miles
Murphy versus a Sam Laporte, we know the Bengals liked maybe not enough to
take it twenty eight, but damn it, they liked him. Bowers is
better. Let's call it like it is. He's better, he's a better
prospect, and he's more productive, and I think he fits what you're going
to do or try to do. And so that's where I'm at now.
With a guy like Murphy, could he come in and help fill a need
right away, Absolutely, But I think a lot of people in town,
whether it's fans people that cover the team, think that that's like the solution,
and now your defensive line is fixed. I don't know if that's true
anyways, and so I'm open to defensive line certainly at eighteen for the first
time since nineteen ninety four, if the Bengals want to go that route in
round one. I also think that this is their shot to get a game
changing type player, and whether that's someone who's going to block for Burrow and
keep Burrow up right so he can make those game changing plays, whether that's
a weapon like Brock power or whether that's someone like Johnny Newton that just gets
after opposing quarterbacks all the time. I think that's where I'm at. I
think it's tough again Byron Murphy. I'm a little lower on him, I
think than consensus. And yeah, it's just from a positional value perspective,
you only get really good, game changing defensive tackles in the top thirty picks
or so. It's really hard to find them outside of the first round.
Not true for tight end. And you throw all that out. It is
in this year's class. This year's class sucks. Oh yeah, no,
there's a reason everyone's talking about Ben Sinnett. But but you throw what I
was going to say to finish the thought is you throw all that out.
You look at the individual prospects each year, it's probably true that you're not
getting a game wrecking defensive tackle outside of the first round this year. It's
definitely true that you're not getting a game wrecking tight end outside of the first
round this year. And so then you have the positional value debate Fuaga Newton
an interesting one. Waga edging out Newton. Here a lot of people saying,
you know, what this should have been the final. But the way
the bracket was made, some amateur put this bracket together, didn't know what
he was doing, didn't think about the second round matchups, and so that's
what we got in the second round. I'm glad it wasn't the final because
I don't think both guys would have escaped, not with Brock Powers as a
two seat baby. Even if those guys were one seeds on their sides,
Let's say, ah, we at Rock would have taken one of them out.
And we'll see this round obviously with Flag and bronc. Yeah, we
can do some hypothetical polls after this is all said and done, and do
the Brock Powers Johnny Newton matchup and do some you know, alternate universe multiverse
matchups the multiverse of the round one bracket. Anyway, that's where we are
for the Final four. We'll be kicking that off here shortly on Twitter.
Keep an eye on at Jake. Let's go on Twitter for that final four
poll coming up. Next, Let's talk about why the Bengals might take a
wide receiver on Day two. Some people are very upset about this in our
comments on YouTube's YouTube James and have very strong opinions. We'll finish the show
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Network your team every day. Fuck you know what's funny? James,
As we transition to talk about wide receiver here, if you look at Lanzer
lines top you know, twenty guys, top forty guys or so, you
would disagree with a lot of the results of our brackets so far. Jac
Latham is Lance's top rated tackle, but Jared Verse has a higher grade than
any offensive tackle in the class from Lance. So he would look at that
first round defeat that Jared Verse could be like, what the heck are you
guys doing in Cincinnati? Same for Layatu Latsu and in fact, one of
the funnier things I noticed here as I was looking at this, he has
laatu Atu Latu ihad aga. Interesting, I had a fuaga. He also
has Graham Barton graded higher than Olufashanu, so it is interesting. There are
opinions out there. But anyway, what we're going to talk about to finish
out the show today is Bengals targeting a wide receiver on Day two. There's
going to be a lot of wide receivers picked on Day two of this draft.
I think there is a falloff after Day two of the draft. There
are some potential slot options that could be available in round four and five that
are guys that I would be happy for the Bengals to target if that's what
they were interested in. If they're looking for a guy that's going to be
a you know, Tyler Boyd kind of ninety five percent slot player. Luke
McCaffrey come on down, and Brendan Rice could potentially be one in the fourth
round if he makes there. But what we've talked about when we talk about
a second round wide receiver or a couple of things. One versatility, who
a guy who can line up outside inside, gives Jamar Chase ability to play
outside inside a little bit more freely, t Higgins to move into the slot
on the rare occasion they do that sort of thing this year. Also,
potentially not that this is something we're expecting at this point at all, gives
them that license to trade t Higgins at some point, should that be something
that is in their plans at all, which we don't think it is,
but that being the smallest point one. Drafting a guy who can play anywhere
gives you that future potential wide receiver two, which is something they need.
Sure they could go after it next year. You never know what next year
is going to bring. And that has been a common point that I've heard
jameson two is that versatility and that impact in twenty twenty four. Allowing Jamar
Chase to play more freely in the slot, allowing yourself to be more versatile,
allowing yourself to do more with motion, and not necessarily have the opposing
team know exactly where everyone's going to be on every play base, on your
personnel, no doubt. And that's the element here. It's not just about
the future and replacing Tea. It's about making this team better now. And
one way you can make them better is giving them more options and giving them
another deep threat, giving them someone that can line up You're right in the
slot, line up outside, allow Jamar Chase to play in the slot more
and be another wrinkle. And it's so funny because even last year, but
certainly this year or the past couple of years. Last year not as much
after the top guys, but it was like, ah, it's so deep
at receiver, and it is deep at receiver this year. But if you
want a guy that can play both and can be a deep threat, and
isn't five eight and one point sixty And I'm just making it, but hits
all of these metrics that the Bengals have used and have had success us with.
Then it gets shallow really quick. And that's the argument. It's pretty
simple. I get the trenches are a huge priority, and they should be,
but they can't get in the way from a team building standpoint of realizing
one the Bengals could use another deep threat today, even if t Higgins got
extended today, even if Trent Irwin was under contract past this year, even
if we knew andre Josavash and Charlie Jones were good NFL players, and I
think they've shown some, specifically Andre as a receiver, but we still don't
know what. We don't know what they're going to be. Trent Norwin's under
a one year contract, and so it's Charlie Jones, andre josvash Jamar Chase
t Higgins in a contract, you're on the tag. You need some reinforcements.
So not only do I think that the Bengals that they'll seriously consider one
on Day two in as early as pick forty nine, I think that they
could very easily double down at receiver again this year and take one of those
other slot receivers on Day three, in round five, in round six,
because you need to replenish a wide receiver room that as of now could use
another deep threat and two a little more versatility. Plus after this year you
could be losing t Higgins Trent Irwin in that wide receiver room gets really really
shallow if you lose those guys, you know, you talk about doubling down
and some of the slot guys on day three. A name that I'm almost
certainly going to include in my predictive mock for the Bengals is Jacob Cowing I
know I've talked about him a few times. The Bengals were out there for
Arizona to work him out. That's not the only reason. He is a
very young breakout age player, and the Bengals you love receivers who had early
young production in college. He has one of the highest breakout age percentiles in
this class, only behind Xavier Worthy I think, at ninety six percent of
Worthies ninety seven percentile. So that is a guy that I think that they
could be looking at later. But to your point, James, I think
this is a team that really values having three good wide receivers, and we've
seen that time and time again. I know that they drafted two guys last
year, but the guys they drafted last year were Day three dart throws.
And the reason I called them that not to take anything away from them,
because they showed some things. Both of them showed some things as rookies that
suggest they could have NFL futures in different roles. But they were older and
they did not hit the breakout age profile that the Bengals almost always hit.
They were sore thumb standouts. In terms of an exception to the rule that
the Bengals apply to their wide receiver draft profile, and so even projecting that
they would continue to develop, it's a real question because typically, you know,
with guys that come into the league older and didn't have that young production,
you don't often see a ton of NFL development. Not to say that
that is impossible, I'm not. I don't have anything personally against Yoshi or
Charlie Jones. I think both guys could be contributors in different ways this year,
but you don't want to necessarily bank on that. And if you go
into twenty twenty five with Jamar Chase and some guys, which is what could
end up being the case in a really good receiver class, and I know
there are a lot of really good receiver classes, but the same way we
talk about this tackle class being really good, it would make sense to dip
into the strength of a phenomenal and varied wide receiver class where many of them
tick all the boxes you want. And we know the Bengals love drafting wide
receiver. We talked about that all year last year, going into the draft,
They're definitely going to pick a couple receivers that year, and it wouldn't
surprise to see at least one or even two to your point, James this
year, Well, because let's just say that, like I did a mock
earlier this week for SI and so I've talked about Troy Franklin. It's not
on the pod. But if they take Troy Franklin, does that keep them
from taking Jacob Cowing, or taking Luke McCaffrey, or taking insert whatever slot.
You know, maybe you like Washington out of USC as one of these
slat guys, or Washington out of what Virginia. Ye, I don't think
so. I think that you're still open there. And part of it is
they have ten picks, and part of it is you could be looking at
a wide receiver room pretty realistically. That is in twenty twenty four or twenty
twenty five, excuse me, Jamar Chase, the second round pick, the
insert whatever other round pick, and then Charlie Jones and andre Yosavash, like
those could be your five. Taking andre Josavash last year, that's kind of
like your Stanley Morgan replacement in a way. That's who he beat out for
that roster spot last year. And Charlie Jones he doesn't necessarily have to be
your Tyler Boyd replacement, and he can be a step below that and be
your Those guys can be a wide receiver four and wide receiver five long term.
And so that's what I think is it's hard for some people to wrap
their heads around. And that's probably what should happen. Is Andre be your
wide receiver four and Charlie Jones be in the mix in the slot, and
we'll see if they take a step forward. But if they don't, you
have other plans in place. So why take a wide receiver early? The
last time they took a wide receiver early, it panned out pretty well,
didn't it. They're really they're really good at drafting receiver. Yeah too,
Generally they're really good at drafting receiver, and in the class is stacked at
receiver, I would trust them to make that pick. That being said,
a lot of people feel like it needs to be trenches early, and we'll
talk about that as well. We'll discuss the pros and cons there. I'm
with you, James. I don't see first round receivers as a likelihood or
even necessarily a wise move for this team. And I think it would change
if they picked Brock Powers. If you picked Brock Powers, maybe the priority
on receiver later in the draft also changes. If you go Brock Powers in
the first round, maybe your Day two is dedicated to the trenches. But
sure, no doubt, Bowers completely changes how I think they are tack wide
receiver. I still think they probably take one, but it might not be
until Day three, right, and so what they do in the first round
does impact things. But if they go trench in the first round, as
we kind of expect, I think Round two, round three are wide open
for wide receiver. And I think that's realistic, and that's why we're talking
about it. It's not just a James James Rapine skill player fever dream.
This is a real thing for the Cincinnati Bengals this year, no doubt.
Yeah, people think I'm gonna whatever, all right, Well it's a real
thing this year. That's gonna do it for this episode of the last real
thing last year in defense it was it was and Laporta. That's gonna do
it for this episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast. Until next time, Thanks
for listening, who day, and have a good one. Skill Players Matter
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