10 pro bowlers undrafted

[Dadraftnick]

On Great Blue North's web site there is a break down of where the Pro Bowl players were drafted in or not drafted.

http://www.gbnreport.com/probowl.htm

10 of the 76 players on the Pro Bowl roster were not drafted at all.

This brings up something that I have been screaming about for years.

There used to be 24 rounds in the draft and there are undrafted players in the Hall of Fame from that time.

In today's 7 rounds of the draft, most teams view the sighing of undrafted free agents as the 8th round of the draft and give fat sighing bonuses and spend great effort scouting,wooing,and sighing the best free agents.

And the Bengals choose to basicaly take the rest of the NFL's left overs when it comes to signing undrafted free agents

And the Bengals also ignore the chance to upgrade their team in the roster cutdowns just before the start of the season.

Mike Brown views giving sighing bonuses to undrafted free agents as wasted money.

It would seem to me ,when you draft as poorly as Brown has , you would welcome this second chance to pick up some cheap players.

Brown is even too cheep to even spend money on the undrafted free agents.

10 of the undrafted players in the Pro Bowl proves my point , that there is gold in the undrafted free agents if you put an effort in it.

I am not sure if Mike Brown is to dumb or too cheep to figure this out.

[HoosierCat]

The Bengals are usually pretty active in undrafted free agency. And they do give out signing bonuses in some cases. LSU center Ben Wilkerson got one to lure him here over several other interested teams. IIRC Hype Henderson got a little extra to come here as well.

[HAPPYJAQ]

The Bengals have done a decent job with UDFA's, I would think. Players like Holt, Henderson, Livings, Coats, Orien Harris, David Jones, Mauia, Busing, Herana Daze Jones, Marcus and Jim Maxwell were all undrafted and have/had contributed in recent seasons. I think the bigger problem is continuity. Most players go undrafted due to needing further development and the fact that the Bengals are consistently turning over coaches (especially DC's) stalls a player's development as he then has to learn a new system, part of a new system or new terminology. It's kind of how Zimmer was saying the Crocker plays fast because he already knows the system, thus allowing him to make plays. Part of that is identifying players who are coachable (see Ahmad Brooks), too.

That's what makes it tough about the current situation because Lewis is building a solid foundation, basically starting completely over. The '05 season is now ancient history and the fans need to understand that. Look at players like James Harrison, Wes Welker and Pat Williams ('09 Pro Bowlers) who were cut by multiple teams before developing into All-Pros later in their careers. The Bengals need better coaching and development more than anything else.

[GregCook]

Yeah but that article also shows most pro bowlers come from the 1st and 2ed round of the draft. We've had a combination of miserable luck(Pollack, Irons) and bad picks (CPerry, Odell, Keiwan Ratliff) in rounds 1 and 2. The Bengals will have a tough time cracking the the PB party in the next few years for anyone not named Palmer.