Bengals Booth Podcast: Back Home Again In Indiana

takes us inside the room. Have you ever tried a mock draft simulator where your computer makes picks for the other thirty one teams and then when it's your turn, you see who's left and pick for the Bengals. I enjoy doing three round mock drafts for Cincinnati and thought it would be fun at the combine to have some

of the top draft gurus do that. Dane Brugler from the Athletic is up first, but before we get to that, I'll talk to a very special guest, Hall of Fame wide receiver James Lofton, who tells us why he's happy to see Ken Riley joining him in Canton. The Bengals Booth Podcast is brought to you by Alta Fiber future Proof fiber Internet capable of delivering multi gigabit speeds designed to take your home, business, and community to a new level.

Elevate your connection with Alta Fiber. Now here's a quick reminder that you can have the latest edition of this podcast delivered right to your phone, tablet, or computer by subscribing wherever you get your podcasts. It's the greatest thing since beer rankings. I'm not talking about ranking your favorite beer brands or favorite beer styles. I'm talking about ranking your favorite beer drinking occasions, like a tailgating beer, or a beach beer, or a just finished mowing a lawn beer.

I bring up the topic because I recently got stuck in the Charlotte airport for several hours, and the delayed flight beer might be number one on my list. There's something about shared misery and a frosty beer that turns anybody and everybody from grumpy to friendly. So here's a toast to the delayed flight beer. When your departure is late,

it tastes great. Now, let's get to football. On Saturday, August fifth, Ken Riley will join Anthony Munio's as the second player who spent most of his career in Cincinnati to enter the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I recently had the opportunity to visit with Hall of Fame wide receiver James Lofton. We discussed the Ratler and much more. James, you indorsed Ken Riley's case to join you in the Pro Football Hall of Fame before he got voted in.

What was your reaction to the Ratler getting selected this year? I was excited, you know, just but you go, man. I wish he could be around to enjoy it, because he really did earn it, and it just seems like for some reason, once he got passed over the first, second or third times, then people just he became an afterthought. But as a player on the field, he was somebody

to contend with. He really was. You faced him when you were a youngster, and he was toward the tail end of his NFL career, but he was still getting it done at the very end. But we had two kind of head to head meetings, one in Green Bay, and I remember, because of the highlights, I always see this highlight. I caught a pass maybe from about the

eleven yard line, a little fade route. He was stumbling, and being the young player that I was, I kind of turned and spiked the ball in his direction, you know, and and spiked it hard, then putting my hands up and ran back down to our sideline and took high fives from all the players. And then fast forward and it's the nineteen eighty three season and it's week nine and I am leading the NFL in yards. After eight games,

I have eight hundred yards. So in my mind, I'm going, man, I'm gonna have fifteen hundred and sixteen hundred yards this season. At the end of the game, when you picked up the newspaper we had newspapers in those days, my stat line was zero for zero, but there should have been an asterisk there. I had two offensive passing affairs calls against me pushing off on Ken trying to get to the ball. He was all over me that day, so

he didn't forget that spike at all. We are visiting with Hall of Famer James Lofton, another former Bengal AJ Green recently announced his retirements. Injuries likely derailed his chance of going to the Hall of Fame someday. But what did you think of aj in his prime and his career as a whole. It's funny when you watch the game, you watch players. You watch their mannerisms, the way they play,

the way they moved. And he was a guy who was built like I was and I and I always looked at him and said, man, that's that's kind of what I would look like in today's game, and obviously today's game referencing when he played, you know, ten years ago. But I looked at him and I just love the

way he played. He was beautiful to watch. And yeah, it's difficult for him just when you start to look at the numbers that guys are going to consistently put up, and the injuries got the injury bug got him the last couple of years, which was unfortunate because he was really one terrific player. The Bengals obviously have a great trial of wide receivers right now in Jamar, Chase te Higgins and Tyler Boyd. Do you think that's the best group in the NFL. It's interesting. I think that they

are really up there. And as I was watching the AFC Championship game, I remember when Tyler Boyd took over from A. J. Green as the number one receiver and now he slid down to that number three receiver. But I'm looking at it, and I'm thinking about football, and I'm thinking about what makes a team and what holds it together. Well, glue holds it together. And on the defensive side, it said Nickel. Defensive back that comes in, who can stop the third receiver? And the third receiver

is the glue that holds the offense together. Yeah, you've got a good run game, you've got good starting receivers, a good tight end, but who can cover that third guy? And normally people could not cover Tyler Board. I think he had fifty eight receptions, seven hundred and sixty two yards, five touchdowns last year. And when he got hurt, I said, oh, the Bengals are I said this to myself, I said, the Bengals are in a little bit of trouble now.

And as it turned out, they really were because they didn't have that third guy to go to and that allowed coverage to shift and really slow down Jamar Chase. They almost got back to the Super Bowl despite that, after coming within a couple of minutes of winning the Super Bowl the year before. How did this past season impact your view of the Bengals and how close they are going forward. I'm just I'm looking at the AFC North, and they are what the AFC West was supposed to be.

Everybody talked about the Bengals and not the Bengals, but they're talked about the Broncos. And you talked about the Chargers and the Raiders and you said, Kansas, See, they're all gonna have winning records. Well, they didn't all have winning records. The team that almost the division that almost did have winning records from top to bottom was the AFC North with Cleveland finishing at seven and ten, but Pittsburgh nine and eight, the Ravens ten and seven, and

then the Bengals on top. And I don't know if somebody can jump up from that division and move make the move. Deshaun Watson, is he gonna be the ju Saum Watson that we saw early in his career in Houston? And as Lamar Jackson gonna be the MVP type guy that he was early on in his career. Right now, if you're looking at it and you're saying that this is a quarterback driven league, Joe Burrow is at the top of the class in that division. Well, you mentioned

two of the great ones in the AFC. Let's take a closer look at the entire conference. You've got Patrick Mahomes, You've got Josh Allen, You've got Trevor Lawrence, and obviously the guys you mentioned in the north. Where does Burrow rank on the list? And what do you like in respect about Joe? Well, you know I made my list, and you know you throw Josh Allen in there, two, Trevor Lawrence, Mahomes, justin Herbert Deshaun Watson Jackson, and then

Joe Burrow and each Sunday, each Sunday. These guys can win games for you. Not that you win games with them or you think that you need better they are They are the guys that win games. And so now of the supporting cast, and do you do the little things during the course of the game. Do you protect the passer well enough? Do you have a good edge rusher? Can you run a game? Compliment this quarterback? So, Joe Burrow, if you're stacking guys, you have to put Patrick Mahomes

there first, because he's won the Super Bowls in that group. Next, it's kind of like a wedding when you throw the guarter belt. It's a mad scramble. Number two, Joe Burrows hed better dive on it because I mean, you could have an argument with anybody at a bar in one of those cities and they would put their guy in number two. They would be foolish to put their guy above Patrick Mahomes, but to put their guy in number two, they would have a legitimate claim for that. And so

I think it's that close with those guys. But when you look at clothes, you look at production, and production wise, it's Joe Burrow because he's been to the Super Bowl, He's played in AFC Championship Game two years in a row, so he is kind of a clear number two. But really just depends on who's buying. We are chatting with the great James lofton, does Joe remind you of anybody who played with or against? I know you got the comparison with the Joe Tanna because of the demeanor, and

Joe Montana was like that. I was with him at the Super Bowl at an event on Radio Row and I just remember him being the guy that I felt like, if I wasn't playing in Green Bay, I want to be playing with Joe Montana. And I think a lot of players around the league, if they weren't playing where they were currently playing, they won't be playing with Joe Burrow. So this is the first offseason where the Bengals can try to extend Joe's contract, and obviously they will try

to do that. He's probably going to be making fifty million dollars a year or something like that. What did you just say, fifty million dollars or something like that? How does that sound? Sounds pretty good? Right? It does sound crazy, but it's happened. I remember when it was

seventy five cents to go to the movies. So assuming they get this done and they keep guys like Higgins and Chase with a salary cap ley, you know, I don't I don't know if if you can do quarterback friendly deals like Tom Brady did with New England, you know, he still got paid a lot of money, but he wasn't always the highest paid guy. He wasn't always making what he deserved for what he was doing for his team.

So it's not my money. So what a quarterback? I can't believe I'm about to say this, take a discount and only take forty million a year as opposed to fifty million a year. And would that really make a big difference? Because I think with all the revenue sources that the NFL has, the salaries are I guess they really are justified. Whatever Joe makes is going to be justified in Cincinnati, I can tell you that. So the Bengals offensive and defensive coordinators got head coaching interviews this

past off season. They did not get selected. So the Bengals will go into next year with Zach Taylor in his fifth season and all of his coordinators with him for that entire time. Lu and a Rumo on defense, Brian Callahan on offense, Darren Simmons as the special team's coordinator. How advantageous do you think that is? Well, it is advantageous because you don't have any new learning, But then on the other end, it's also disadvantageous because you don't

have any new learning. You're not bringing a new spice into the building. Because everybody who's competing against you in your own division, they're getting to know you a little bit better, You're getting to know them a little bit better. And then it really does boil down to the personnel. And you mentioned about the quarterback getting the contract extension, who does that chop off? That was really good, But now you've got to bring in somebody and teach them

what this guy already knew. So having new the same coordinators helps in that fashion. So, but coordinators are important. Head coaches are important, and I love coaches who have smart gambles. So during the course of a game going forward on third down, you know, having a third down where you got third and one, throw that ball deep because you know you can pick it up on fourth down or you have confidence to do that. And you played to the strength of your players. What do they

do well? Don't ask guys to do things that they don't do real well. And I think that the Bengals have done that when I watched them play. They don't ask guys to do things that they aren't capable of doing exceptionally well. Final question for James Lofton. We've crossed paths a few times over the years when you've been broadcasting Bengals games. The last one you did was in the twenty twenty season, shortly after Joe Burrow got hurt. Yeah, were you stunned that they were in the super Bowl

the next year? You know what? And you go back to about week twelve and the Bengal I can't remember who the Bengals had lost too, but it was a loss and it might have been the Chargers. I don't know if that sounds if that's correct, but there was somebody that they lost to. That last quarter of the season is up, they're kind of done, and then they won the next four or five to close out the season. So it depends on getting hot at the right time.

And we're always talking about playing your best football in December and January, and the Bengals have done that the

last two years. And that really does boil down to coaching and the coach having that confidence in his players that pushes them enough during training camp a little bit during this course of the season, knows when to back off, understands the bye weeks, understands the Thursday night games and all of that, and makes it not that it's just player friendly, but it's also coach friendly because you want your coaches to be energized at the later part of

the season. So that's what I think Zach Taylor has done exceptionally well. James, this has been great and on behalf of Bengals fans, thank you for publicly endorsing Ken Riley's Hall of Fame case before he got in. I think the impact of legends like yourself and others who spoke up and trying to make the case the cannon is sixty five interceptions deserve to be in Canton made a big difference. So thank you very much. Well, I just got to tag the Ken Riley's story with this,

so we had the two head to head matchups. And then he takes a coaching job with the Green Bay Packers and he lives five houses away from me, just to torment me even more. I couldn't get open to even when he was coaching for the Packers. Well, that bust is going to look great in Canton, and thank you for the impact that you had in making it happen. So again, thank you for your time. Greatly appreciate it, and I hope our paths crossed in a broadcast booth

sometime soon. Great scene you get Dan. The Bengals Booth podcast is brought to you by Kettering Health, the official healthcare provider of the Bengals. With more than one hundred twenty care facilities and fifteen hundred care providers, Kettering Health is committed to guiding you to your best health. Visit Kettering health dot org. To learn more and by pay Corps. More than twenty nine thousand customers trust paycre to help them recruit, pay, engage, and retain employees. Learn more at

paycorps dot com. The NFL Scouting Combine has been going on this week in Indianapolis, and while the drills are televised, one thing we don't get to see are the meetings that the teams hold with the players. What exactly are those meetings like To find out, I caught up with the Bengals director of college scouting Mike Potts. Mike, how valuable is the combine and what do you value the

most while you're here? It's really valuable overall. I think the medical is probably the thing that is the most valuable at the end of the day for us. Just having three hundreds some players all in the same place, with all these doctors from around the league getting in depth scans and everything that they all that information that they need, that's probably, at the end of the day, the most valuable thing that we get out of it. But then also the workouts in the interviews are obviously,

um incredibly important as well. So it's it's just it's just really really great. We've been scouting these guys all year and um, it's it's great to have them all in the same location for a week and you get to sit down and look them in the eye and talk to him face to face and see him work work out there on the field. So I love it every year. I look forward to it every year. Um coming to Indie and UM, it's just a it's just

a great event. I would love to be a fly on the wall for the one on one interviews, or not one on one because you have several people in the room, but the interviews that you do with the prospects, how many do you do while you're here? And how long are they? So there's forty five interviews that we get this year. They were spread out throughout Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday this week. UM. Some some years that it may be spread over five days or so, but they're eighteen

minutes long each. We get to we get to pick the forty five guys that we want we want to interview and they can be anywhere from starting at eight am and then they can end as late as eleven pm at night. So there's there's some long days, but it's it's Uh, you know, probably my favorite part of it just you're you're talking to staff members from all these colleges, all of their coaches and getting information in

their opinion on the player. But it's but it's nice to then bring that full circle and meet the player face to face. So it's a great process. We go through it. Um, I have set questions that I ask everybody, and then there's also specific questions tailored to that individual, and then we let our position coach go through some tape with them and and everybody in the room is kind of free to shoot out questions at you know, towards the end of it, if there's specific things that

pop up. So it's, uh, it's an awesome, awesome process, and it's it's great for for some of the people that aren't familiar with the player to really have a strong baseline and introduction to some of these players. Is that typically the first time you have ever talked to the player, it typically is at some of the small schools. They may bring if they only have one prospect or one or two, they may bring them in to meet

with you. If you go on a scouting visit to say a Division two school or something like that, and then there's a handful of schools that they'll introduce you to the player very briefly, but I would say probably a good ninety percent of the time it's the first real interaction with that player, and then that'll continue throughout

the spring. Obviously going to their pro days, you'll get more face to face interaction with them, and then we may well we get thirty guys that we can bring in for visits to Cincinnati, so we'll get some more face to face interaction, but that typically most of the time is the first time that you're talking to them face to face. We're visiting with the Bengals director of

college Scouting, Mike Potts. Eighteen minutes isn't very long. Do you have to stick to a tight script to try to get as much accomplished as you can in those

eighteen minutes we do. We try to take advantage of every second that we have, so some of it is scripted, but there we try to make it a balance to where it's not too scripted and it's it's somewhat casual and conversational to where in that eighteen minutes you're not going to find out everything, but you want to get a feel for who they are as a person, get a feel for their general personality, you know, just just so you can go off of your scouting instincts and

compare them to guys that you've interviewed in the past. And like I said, we ask a lot of the guys the same questions, so we can compare even the forty five guys that we interview this year, we can compare some of the ways that they answer those same questions. But yes, we try to make it as efficient as possible, and we're constantly tweaking it every year if there's one question we want to take out and a new question

we want to add. But like you said, it's you can never get one hundred percent conviction on a guy in eighteen minutes, But we try to do the best that we possibly can. Are they taped? They We used to do that, but we chose not to go with that now. Like I said, it goes along with wanting to get a true feel or the person. And you know, just how it is with anybody. If a camera's in your face, you're probably not going to act exactly how how you would be in a casual setting. You know,

you and I just sitting here having a conversation. So we had done that at times in the past, but we've kind of went away from that and we have we've chosen not to record it, but we do. We do take notes on everything. You know, all of our scouts in the room or are taking different notes and and we'll grade guys A through F in terms of you know, what we what we thought of them in the interview process. So it's it's, uh, you know, there's it's documented in a certain way, but we don't. We

chose not to video or audio record it. If you have a quote unquote red flag on a guy, something that's happened in their past, an incidents, something that happened on their team, whatever that might be, is this a major opportunity to get to the bottom of it? Is that kind of when you address it? It is because everybody has different opinions on the players. So I may go into a school, one of our other scouts may

go into a school. You may get ten different sources, ten different staff members that have an opinion on a guy. Maybe five or six are negative and maybe the other four or five are positive on the guy. And then when you get a chance, give this player a chance to tell his side of the story. Then maybe maybe there's some discrepancies there between different opinions that other people

thought of the of the story. Sometimes maybe there's there's things that players will own up to that they did negatively that maybe some people on their staff didn't even know about. So there it kind of works both ways in that regard. So I do these fun facts interviews during the course of the season. I always end with the same question, if you could meet anybody in history, who would that person be? And it leads to some

fun content. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it's not. But do you have a question that you found over the years? You know, I often get a lot of interesting responses that help me understand these players. Oh man, there's there's so many different questions. I don't know if I could boil it down just to to one. UM. I always like asking them what their what their drive is, what

their motivation is. Um It kind of gives us a feel for how much they love football along with you know, sometimes you you you ask about their family, you ask about football questions we put the tape on. I just love seeing a combination of that and certain moments in the interview when the guy really lights up and you can really see his passion, and then some guys are just less, less emotional, you know, lower lower energy, and

more monotone throughout. So I think that not that we would eliminate a guy that that was that way, but I think I think it does tell you a lot about it. I wish I could boil it down to one specific question, but if I had to pick one, it's just kind of what their drive is. We're talking to the Bengals director of college scouting, Mike Potts. In racing years, you drafted a lot of captains. You talked about the love of the game, guys that enjoy the grind.

Has it been by design that you've drafted so many captains and guys that seem to fit that description or is that just the way it's worked out. I think

it's a little bit of both. We're not going out looking specifically for captains, but the type of guys were looking for typically end up being captains, So it kind of works hand in hand that way in terms of we end up with the captain at the end of our process because the guys that we're looking for, they're displaying those traits at their college and then in turn being you know that they earned the respect of their their coaches and their teammates, and then they're voted to

be captains at their school. So we're not specifically looking for captains, because sometimes there are cases where guys are undeserved to be a captain at their college. They just get voted, you know, because they're the best player, or maybe they're the starting quarterback and the coaches want them to be a leader and a quote unquote captain. M But it's but they're not necessarily a great leader, and

they maybe didn't necessarily earn that captaincy. So it it's not something that we seek out, but a lot of times it ends up happening once we go through our process. So back in twenty twenty, when you met with Joe Burrow, somebody who was in the room that day said to me later, it was the most impressive combine interview that I've ever seen. What stood out to you about that initial meeting with Joe? Yeah, I would agree he was

very impressive. I had done a lot of work on scouting him throughout the previous couple of years to that, so I think I had a good feel for what that was going to be like. But you never know until you meet the guy for the first time and look him in the eye. So it may have been a little bit more informative for the other people in the room. But he struck you exactly the way that his staff members at LSU and people we talked to it Ohio State, people we talked to even prior to that.

The way everybody raved about him and described him, it aligned with what we saw when we met him in person. So it's always good when those two line up. Like I said previously, sometimes it doesn't always align. There's different opinions on guys and you meet a guy and you're like, this guy's completely different than what he was described by

some people. But with Joe, it all lined up, and you know, everything that I think we've seen in Cincinnati in terms of his leadership, his drive, his intelligence, um really everything that he brings to the table, and everything that he's been for us in Cincinnati. UM, I think I think you could see some of those traits. Even though it's only an eighteen minute an interview. You you got a glimpse of that U in meeting him here in Indy. When you put on the tape. Is it

their tape? Is it Bengals tape? What are you asking them to look at we put on their tape. We want them to talk ball, We want them to tell us what they know football wise. It's it's stuff that they've been doing the last three to five years with most of most of these guys, and they should be really familiar with the terminology. Tell us what you're doing on this play? Hey, coach me up here, if I'm if I'm the right guard on this play, coach me up in your scheme? M what are they asking you

to do? So it's it's it's all their tape. It could be from any point throughout their career, freshman all the way up to to senior year. And there's it's we're restricted for time, so sometimes we may only get

to five to ten clips. But then it kind of gives us a direction to go later in the process in terms of if we meet them at their pro day and we can sit down for an hour and watch tape with them, or we do a zoom interview with him, or we bring them into our facility, it kind of is able to point us in the right direction for the questions that we still need to answer in terms of our football intelligence. A couple more questions for Mike Potch. You've been with a Bengal since twenty fifteen,

I believe working very closely with Duke Tobin. What do you admire and respect about Duke. Duke's great to work for. He doesn't micromanage us whatsoever. I think he's very even keeled in his personality. I think he's a you know, a guy who is just looking to do what's best for the organization. And I really respect that about him.

Love working underneath of him. Um. He's taught me a lot, you know, just about scouting, about the whole process, you know, from from the salary cap thought side of things, some of the analytics things that we do, you know, pro and college scouting. And he's he's given me a great opportunity here to put a ton on my plate. You know, my my job duties may be more focus mainly on college scouting, but that may only be seventy percent of

what I do. There's a lot of other things that he's given me to put on my plate and that helps me get better, um, and develop more experience in different areas to you know, be able to add more value to the organization. So I really really love the way he has everything is set up here. And again he's he's a great guy to work under. The draft is a very imprecise science, but the Bengals have been on at least I think a bit of a role

of late. What do you think that you and the entire Cincinnati staff have done well bringing in the right people character wise, And there's different phases to it. You talked about the interviews, you know, we we've talked about scouting and talking to people at their colleges, you know, in their in their life growing up before college, their family background. So you just have to put it all together,

you have to. We have a we have a lot of hard workers on our staff that really embrace the process, are really detail oriented and thorough in everything that they do from an evaluation standpoint. And then really at the end of the day, I think it's not overthinking it. We're looking for good players. Everybody's looking for good players. But sometimes you may overvalue a certain a certain trait whatever whatever it could be speed, it could be size,

you know, it could be intelligence. I think at the end of the day, we're looking for the guys that that can bring the most well rounded um games to Cincinnati in all aspects, it's not you know, it's easier said than done, especially picking late in the drafts as we have been here the past couple of years. It's gonna it's gonna make it a little bit more difficult, and it's gonna make our process that much more important. But um, at the end of the day, and I

don't think it's it's rocket science. It's it's uh, we're evaluating football players and uh, and we're not going to overthink it. But but I do think we've done a good job, and I at the same time, I think I still think there is room for improvement, to continue to get better with with our processes and continue to just to just bring in the right type of players that we want. Again as people and as football players, these are busy, long days. You are running on coffee

and adrenaline. I appreciate you taking some bud time with me and best of luck when the draft approaches. Thanks a lot, Dan, I appreciate it. The Bengals Booth podcast is brought to you by Bengals Picks and Ultimate Bengals. They're free to play with tickets and signed merchandise up for grabs. Find both inside the Bengals app. As I've mentioned before on this podcast, I am a big fan

of mock draft simulate. If you're not familiar with what I'm talking about, you can find good ones for free at Pro Football Focus dot com and Pro Football Network dot com. The Mock Draft simulator allows you to play Bengals GM for as many rounds of the draft as you want. The simulator begins making picks in order, and then when it's your turn, you can decide whether you want to wheel and deal or go ahead and make

the Bengals pick. I've been doing three round mock drafts for several years and it's a great way to learn some of the players that are likely to be available to the Bengals. So this week at the combine, I came up with a fun idea. I asked several NFL draft experts to join me in front of my laptop and make the Bengals first three picks by using the

Pro Football Focus mock Draft simulator. Up first, Dane Bruegler, who covers the draft for the Athletic All Right, we fired up the PF mock draft simulator with my favorite draft guru, Dane Brugler from The Athletic. Always great to catch up with Dane at the combine. We're not gonna

be allowed to make any trades. We don't know how accurate this is going to be based on your board, but in any case, I'm going to hit start and when the Bengals pop up at number twenty eight, we'll look at the options available, we'll see which guy's just got picked, and we'll see what you would do. So here we go. All right, the picks are flying off the board. This goes very very quickly. We are at

twenty twenty five, twenty eight. Dalton kin Kaid, who has frequently been mocked to the Bengals, just went at twenty seven to the Buffalo Bills. I'll show you a few of the previous picks. Yea Mozzi Smith at the board of twenty six of the Cowboys. That's interesting, Zay Flowers at twenty three of the Vikings. Now we're going over to the guys still available side right, So we have Collijah Cans. This is the best available Cordin at PFF.

So we've got Collige Kanci, Dante Banks, drinks way too early. Fron Jack Carter Nolan's myth who had such a big workout last night at the Combine. Okay, Anton Harrison, that's a good name to keep on the radar. Luke Musgrave who they might name rename the combine after him when he's done with it. You had him going to the Bengals in your most present mock. I did, and and you know, I think that got mixed reaction from Bengals fans.

But uh, he's a weapon, He's he's a really athletic player, so I think he should at least be in that conversation. H B Gigi Larry. I think that makes uh if if we're talking about best player, he's someone that you know, you always try to get strength on the edges, even

if it's not your number one need. So I like that. Um, you know, I keep going back to the top and there's a corner there, Deontay Banks, who if they were to go in that direction, Uh if if they wanted to look at a cornerback at that point, I think Deontay Banks would be a really good value. This is a player that throwing the Ohio State tape and watching,

you know, cover Mervin Harrison. That was a fun battle to watch between those two big athletic He covers well to the top of routes if as long as he trusts his technique. He is an NFL starter and a guy that I think you feel comfortable leaving on an island in the NFL. So, Jonte Banks, that's awfully appealing there, twenty eight. I think that might be the direction I would go all right with the twenty eighth pick in the twenty twenty three NFL Draft. The Athletics draft guru

Dame Bruegler has selected Maryland cornerback Tante Banks. So here are some things to know about Maryland cornerback Deonte Banks. He's six feet tall, one hundred ninety seven pounds and ran a four three five forty at the combine to rank third fastest among the cornerbacks. His forty two inch vertical leap was number one in their most recent mock drafts. ESPN's Mel Kiper and the NFL Networks Daniel Jeremiah both

had Banks going twenty third to the Kings. Now time to move on to the Bengals second pick, number sixty overall. Now the draft simulator will zip to the Bengals pick in the second round. Okay, we'll take a look at some of the most recent selections. Jamie Robinson him off to the Bills safety from Florida State. Matthew berg Ern tackle guard for the Cowboys at fifty eight, which that would have been a nice pick for the Bengals. Josh Down to the Giants, Steve of Vila to the Jags,

Big Dwan Jones from Ohio State. Your second round pick in your most meat recent draft to the right. Yeah, so okay, let's look go ahead and look at the best available at this point. Then Andre Carter is still there, not surprising. Nathaniel Dell still a little early for him. Dan Henley, he's on his way up. I like that. Oh at a barre from Northwestern who unbelievable combine before.

I've never seen a human being two eighty pounds or more run as four or five forty until last night, so I thought to be the fastest ever by a guy to at the combiner. Unbelievable. Um. Now the question is, okay, how do you Because he was great at the Singer Bowl, great here at the combine because it was the positional stuff was great too. So how do you apply that now to the evaluation? How how does his grade change? How?

You know, how do you see it on tape? So that's what teams are kind of scrambling to figure out. I mean, you love it for the kid. It's good for him. He's gonna go much higher than we thought in December. But uh, you know what point do you take him? Um? Okay, Luke Whippler from Ohio states a little early for him. Carl Brooks from Blowing Green and Nick Herbig interesting kind of a hybrid rusher. Sam Laporta from Iowa I like quite a bit. Um the Iowa

tight end. Just a rock solid player. I'll tell you what. At a barre. Uh, you know he gives you a little versatility, can be that three technique? Can you know, can rush off the edge. Um, he's got a different body type because he's a little shorter, but he's got their four inch arms. So let's go without a bari here. Strengthen the defensive line both inside outside. You've got someone that you can mold. And you know, you look at the Bengals draft last year with a guy like you know,

Dax's Hill in the first round. You know who you pick for the future at a barre is a guy that's going to help you right away, but also a pick for the future on that defensive line. Now some more details on Northwestern defensive lineman at a Tommy Wah at a barre he's six two, two hundred eighty two pounds and ran a four four nine forty with a

thirty seven and a half inch vertical. The previous record for the fastest forty time at the Combine by a player two hundred eighty plus pounds was four to six to eight by somebody named Aaron Donald. Again at a barre, ran a four four nine. His stats weren't off the charts at Northwestern, with five sacks last year and four and a half the year before. Pro Football Focus has him ranked forty fifth. It's top one hundred board and that came out before the Combine. Now time for the

Bengals next pick number ninety two. Overall, we are just about at Cincinnati at pick number ninety two. Alight, first, we'll see the guys that went just before the Bengals. Okay, so Devin eh Chain to the Bills, I don't you know, and maybe they could have taken a running back. You know, we'll see how that plays out. Tucker Craft, one of my favorite players in the draft. Southdkota stayed at ninety

to the Cowboy, that's a tremendous value there. Um Tank Dell Houston receiver, the Giants, Sydney Brown, Illinois safety, decent value. There's what was the last time or the less tackle drafted here? Let's see what's a because the tackle class really thins out on day two. And you know, we're seeing this here, you're scrolling not a lot of tackles off the board. Um, okay, Tyler Steen at sixty sixty, that's and that's possible. It might be an example of

because tackle there's so few tackles. Uh, you know, once you get to day two, So a guy like Tyler Steen maybe gets pushed up a little bit. I think it's pretty pretty rich for him. But you gotta do what you gotta do. So that that's interesting that how the Bengals are sitting here with what's available. Should I filter the remaining guys and look at tackles? Would you like me to take a shot at that? All right? So we are hitting that little tackle button here, all right?

So at this point, Blake Freeland, Luke Haggaroof I like Bradon Daniels. Brandon Daniel is a good player. UM, I think this is right around the range where you start thinking about Bradon Daniels. Carter Warren maybe as well, But the rest of these tackles are not guys that you're

getting excited about here in the third round. UM, I did see a tight end that caught my eye there, and if you were to be available at this point, I don't know how you're passing UM talking about Sam Laporta from Iowa, who, in my opinion is and this

is a really deep tight in class. And that might be the reason why you don't draft a tight end in the first round, because you feel good about who's gonna be there for your second, third, fourth round, and case in point right here, late third round, Sam Laporta is here. Luke's schoonmaker I think is a third round player. He's still available, but Sam Laporta, I'm not passing up

this value. Give me Laporta, who you know. You talk to scouts and they'll say he's maybe not quite as athletic as a Noah Fan or t J. Hawkinson, but he's got the grit of George Kittle talking about those Iowa tight ends, so Sam Laporta pick ninety two, loving that value there. The Bengals reportedly met with Sam Laporta at the combine. Iowa listed him at six four, two hundred forty nine pounds, and he had a very productive career with the Hawkeyes, finishing with one hundred and fifty

three catches for nearly eighteen hundred yards. Among Iowa tight ends all time, Laporta ranks first in catches and second in yards, and he was a team captain last year. After you do a mock draft on the Pro Football Focus simulator, PF gives you a grade. Let's find out how Dane Brogler did. Here's how PF has graded your picks A in round one, B plus in round two as in round three. For an A overall grade, you're the highest highest anyone's graded so far. I'll take that.

I mean, I don't you know, the grade means little, But if that's the three players the Bengals come back with picking later in each round, I think you got to feel great about that. You got guys that can help right away but also building for the future. So I like that. Haul a lot for Cincinnati. This was fun. I always appreciate your time. Keep up the great work. Can't wait to see the Bible. All right, thank you,

I said the Bible, I meant the Beast. That's the name of Dane's annual draft guide, which is the most comprehensive of any more three round mock drafts using the PF simulator in the weeks to come. On this podcast with Charles Davis from the NFL Network, Pete Prisco from CBS, and Austin Gale from The Ringer. That's going to do it for this episode of the Bengals Booth podcast brought to you by Cattering Health, the official healthcare provider of

the Bengals, by Bengals Picks and Ultimate Bengals. They're free to play with tickets and signed merchandise up for grabs by pay Corps, the official HR software provider of the Bengals, and by Alta Fiber future Proof Fiber Internet elevate your connection with Alta Fiber. If you haven't done so already, please subscribe to this podcast and if you have a minute, give it a rating or share a comment. Matt helps

more Bengals fans find us I'm Dan Horde. Thanks for listening to the Bengals Booth podcast