The Bengals' offseason: Optimism, but few big moves

Bengals fans haven't been this excited in August since the days of the Ickey Shuffle . . .

[11th in a series of posts looking at many of the NFL's 32 teams and their offseasons.  Past posts: Vikings, Jets, Rams, Chiefs, Bucs, Titans, Bears, Browns, Redskins, and Bills.]

Optimism abounds in Cincinnati, where the Bengals are looking for back-to-back playoff appearances for the first time since Boomer Esiason and Ickey Woods roamed the backfield.

The Bengals were a legitimate playoff team last year, as evidenced by their Pythagorean expectation of 8.5 wins in what turned out to be a 9-7 season.  Against teams other than the Ravens and Steelers, Cincinnati went an impressive 9-3.  QB Andy Dalton had an impressive rookie campaign, and fellow second-year pro AJ Green is making Bengals fans quickly forget about the days they started Terrell Owens and Chad Ochocino at WR.  Lastly, we thought they had the best draft of any team in the league.

So did the Bengals back it up in free agency?  Truth is, they were pretty quiet.  Details after the jump.

Draft Wrap: Quick Hits

Time for Mel to go back into hibernation for the next 361 days

A few quick hits to wrap up our draft coverage.  Also, if you missed it check out the rest of our coverage this week, including:

- The best and worst case scenarios for #1 overall pick Andrew Luck (Thursday)
- Our draft rankings, 1 through 32 (Monday)
- Grading the mock drafts (Monday)
- How the Seahawks (Monday) and Browns (Tuesday) screwed up
- The best and worst picks of every round

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The Best and Worst Picks of Each Round

This guy turned out to be an OK 6th round pick for New England

It takes at least three years to legitimately grade any draft, but that hasn't stopped us from trying.  Yesterday we ranked the drafts of all 32 teams, 1 (the Bengals) through 32 (the Patriots).  After the jump, using the same methodology from yesterday, we'll have a look at the best and worst picks of each of the draft's seven rounds.

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How the Browns Blew the Draft

The Dawg Pound has reason to be melancholy after this weekend's draft

Yesterday, we graded each team, 1 through 32, on its draft this past weekend.  The Bengals came out #1, but the other Ohio team, the Cleveland Browns, fared much worse.  The Browns came in at #29 of #32, and did so in somewhat spectacular fashion.  After the jump, we count the ways the Browns screwed up this weekend, with special appearances from Vince Vaughn and Scott Bakula . . .

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Grading the Mock Drafts: Peter King is Your Champ

Peter King, your 2012 Backup Quarterback Blog Mock Draft Champion

Last Monday's post looked at 7 mock drafts published at the time.  Most mock drafters change their picks as often as The Bachelorette, so the picks we saw three days before the draft only slightly resemble most of these drafters' "final" mock drafts.  But we happened to capture them at a point in time, and it's that point in time that we'll use in grading them.

As a reminder, we used 7 mock drafters: ESPN's Mel Kiper, Jr. and Todd McShay, Peter King of Sports Illustrated and NBC Sports, Rob Rang of CBSSports.com, Evan Silva of ProFootballTalk.com, Charley Casserly of NFL Network, and some dude named Kash Money from MockingTheDraft.com.  And we considered only the first 11 draft picks.

After the jump, our final rankings and where the mock drafters hit and missed.  Also, you can see our ranking of how the teams drafted, 1 through 32, here.

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The Draft, from best (the Bengals) to worst (the Patriots)



Brandon Thompson (middle), the best value in the 2012 Draft

Lots to talk about on this Monday after the draft.  We'll start with an assessment of every team's draft.  Our aim was to devise a ranking system that took into account player quality, where a team was picking in the draft, and that weighted early round picks more than later round picks.  After the jump, our methodology and the rankings:

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NFL Draft: Why You Should Hope Your Team Picks a Tight End in the 1st Round

Stanford TE Coby Fleener: The Safest Bet in Tonight's First Round?

When their team’s first round draft pick(s) is/are announced tonight, a lot of fans will be asking themselves the following question: “Should I be excited?”  After all, only a handful of players typically evoke true feelings of excitement in a given draft.  In this draft, Andrew Luck, RG3, Trent Richardson, and Justin Blackmon probably comprise that group.  No one’s going around fist-pumping and yelling “we just got our starting left tackle for the next 12 years!”  (Least of all the Vikings, who are about as psyched to take Matt Kalil at 3 as Sally Draper was to hang out with Henry Francis' mother a few weeks ago on Mad Men.)

As a Steelers fan, I can only remember three times during the draft when I was legitimately excited after a draft:

1.       In 1996, when they acquired Jerome Bettis from the Rams, and my excitement there was over Bettis, not a draftpick

2.       In 2004, when they selected Ben Roethlisberger 11^th overall, the first QB since Terry Bradshaw who could give fans even a sliver of hope that they could come back from a double-digit lead

3.       In 2007, when they selected RoboPunter in the 4^th round.  (Unfortunately, the RoboPunter era came to an end last year.  But it was fun while it lasted.)

I digress.  This post looks at a more quantifiable way to decide how you should feel about your team’s first-round draft pick: that pick’s position.  After the jump, a look at the likelihood of success at each position in the first round, and why you should be psyched if your team ends up with a guy named Coby Fleener (no relation to Myra Fleener).

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Andrew Luck: The Next Peyton Manning or The Next Jeff George (or worse?)

Even Sports Illustrated knew the Colts were taking a big risk in drafting Jeff George.

It's amazing how a few days can change everything.  Our last post on Monday night predicted that teams 3-7 could all receive interest from teams looking to trade up for Ryan Tannehill.  Barely 36 hours later, and barely 30 hours before the draft, Minnesota GM Rick Spielman has indicated that trade talks have "really heated up" for the Vikings' pick at #3.  Some are saying it's the Dolphins for trying to trade for Tannehill, others are saying it's a team trying to get Trent Richardson (The Rams at 6?  The Bucs at 5?), which would, in turn, cause the Browns (at 4) to look hard at trading down and break their fans hearts for the second time this offseason (first RG3, now Richardson) all at the same time.

For the rest of this post, we'll stick to sure things, namely that Andrew Luck will be the Colts' pick at #1 overall.  The Colts think he's a sure thing and are so sure of it that they cut ties with Peyton Manning.

After the jump, a look at the best- and worst-case scenarios for the Colts and Andrew Luck.

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Draft Preview: The Ryan Tannehill Factor and Why Jacksonville Should Think Hard About Trading Down

Welcome to the inaugural post of The Backup Quarterback Blog.  This site’s mission is to provide NFL analysis from the perspective of the objective NFL fan.  Our first topic?  The NFL Draft, which starts Thursday night and runs through Saturday.  ESPN is already hyping its coverage ad nauseam, with Cee Lo Green’s “Bright Lights Big City” evidently playing the role of “song ESPN will beat to death."  Here’s hoping Cee Lo shows up at Radio City Music Hall to meet Roger Goodell in his Super Bowl outfit.

After the jump:

• A look at 7 mock drafts and how everyone's afraid to be different
• The Ryan Tannehill phenomenon, who might trade up for him and with whom
• The historic nature of QBs in this draft

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