They say it takes three years to grade a draft, so here we are again, back in April 2021 and a draft whose talent level was heavily impacted by covid, and which for Bengals fans featured The Big Debate: Chase or Sewell?
Good times, good times. So, how'd they do?
Round 1/pick 5: WR Ja'Marr Chase. Yeah, that one worked out okay, didn't it? A+ here.
2/14: OT Jackson Carman. Insert sad trombone sound here. Complete bust. F
3/5: DE Joseph Ossai. Ossai has shown flashes but is constantly hurt. Not sure how many more chances he's going to get. Gentleman's C I guess.
4/6: DE Cam Sample. Turned out to be a great find in the fourth round. Solid rotational contributor in the d-line. B+
4/17: DT Tyler Shelvin. Covid had stripped the DT class and the Bengals took a shot on the big guy, but it didn't pan out. Last seen getting released by Tennessee last September. Will give this one a D just because it was a longshot from the start.
4/34: OT D'Ante Smith. Career backup/teams guy. Maybe a C?
5/5: K Evan McPherson. And it's good! That's an easy A.
6/6: C Trey Hill. Teams guy mainly. But it's round 6, what do you expect? B? C? I dunno. At least he contributes.
6/18: RB Chris Evans. He's made some plays, but we've seen so little of him and he keeps getting buried behind new arrivals like Chase Brown. Again no idea really what grade to give, maybe an incomplete.
7/7: DE Wyatt Hubert. Tore a pec and missed his whole rookie season, retired the next year, unretired the year after that and tried to make a comeback with KC, now apparently a medical sales rep per linkedin. Grade: who cares.
Overall: three years later, this feels like a B-/C+ draft. Chase is a golden god, but they faceplanted in round 2, 3 is looking iffy, and they went 1/3 on three fourths. Might bump it up to a solid B since they did get some value after, particularly McPherson, and as noted above the talent pool was shallow due to covid.