2024 AFC North Division BENGALS - Draft Observations: Volume

Over the past few years I have gotten into the habit of following podcasts for each team in the AFC North Division.  In Cleveland we have two very good podcasts:  The Orange and Brown Talk Podcast featuring the amazing Mary Kay Cabot and I also enjoy Scott Petrak's Browns Zone Coverage Pod.   All of our rivals have very good podcasts, the best being Dan Hoard's Bengals Booth Pod.  The Ravens and Steelers have tons of options too.

During Draft Week there are daily Pods and I have listened to them all.  So I wanted to share a few observations today about the Cincinnati Bengals draft.   

The AFC North Division is the toughest division in the NFL, so let's start with an obvious assumption:  All of the teams in the AFC North evaluate talent well.   Given that a 50% hit rate is considered great, volume of picks is probably the biggest factor to the success of a teams draft and that's my theme today for the Bengals 

1.  CINCINNATI BENGALS made 10 picks! 

I thought the Bengals had the most impressive and potentially impactful draft on any team in the AFC North.    They filled critical needs at several positions and it always felt like they picked the best player on the board too.   Mike Brown and team managed the draft like expert conductors.   Listening to the interviews of these young athletes I came away impressed with how mature and articulate each of them were.    10 picks are a lot and each of these men are impressive on and off the field.  Will all 10 prove to be capable of being in the top 2% of athletes who thrive in the NFL, doubtful however I would not be shocked if more than half do indeed build successful NFL careers. 

The Bengals picks:

Amarius Mims:  Offensive Tackle -  Huge, athletic

Kris Jenkins:  DT -  NFL pedigree

Jermaine Burton:  WR - Joe Burrow has to like this pick, Bengals spoke about his ability to separate

McKinnley Jackson:  DT - More interior line

Erick All:  TE - Unbelievable athlete whose stock dropped because of injuries

Josh Newton:  DB - Tough and the Bengals talked a lot about his ability to track the ball

Tanner McLachlan:  TE - Big pass catcher who needs to improve his blocking

Cedric Johnson:  DE Ole Miss 

Daijahn Anthony:  DB  Another Ole Miss, started his college career as a walk on, Bengals talked a lot about his motivation and desire

Matt Lee:  C  Bengals believe he has a chance to make the 53 man this year.   Also a nice addition for Kick Return team 

NFL Draft Insights - NFL Draft Pundits are full of shit

NFL fans are in love with the NFL Draft and there are literally dozens of pundits who make a living or are trying to make a living analyzing the crop of athletes who are draft eligible every season.   

So let me start with my only NFL Draft Prediction:   There are zero NFL Draft pundits out there who possess more than a few true insights into the talent in the upcoming NFL Draft.   Nor do fans opinions carry any value.   The only persons on this planet whose conclusions matter are NFL Scouts and even they have a 50% batting average at best but considering the complexity of the task, 50% is extraordinary.   

The bottom line:  Draft pundits are full of shit and I will explain why in the blog.  Read on...

In a quotation that could have easily come from Yogi Berra, Nobel Prize winning Physicist Neils Bohr once said "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it is about the future"

Truer words have never been spoken.   Let's use this insight to analyze the complexity of predicting which NCAA athletes might succeed in the National Football League.   

Fun facts about football players:

• There are over 11,000 athletes who dress for a Division I NCAA College Football Team in a given season
• There are less than 2,000 athletes on NFL rosters, many of them are multi year veterans.  
• In a typical season, a few hundred rookies make a regular season NFL roster or practice squad.
• There are thousands more athletes playing college football in Division II, Division III, NAIA and JUCO.
• Of the thousands of NCAA Division I athletes who are eligible to be drafted in a given season, only about 300 athletes get invited every year to the NFL Scouting Combine.
• Less than 2% of Division I NCAA football players will take so much as a single snap in an NFL regular season game.

So the task of predicting who at the college level will succeed in the NFL comes down to predicting which athletes are in top 2%.

Let's compare choosing NFL players to a task of similar complexity that we might all relate to: Academics:

Baldwin Wallace University, which ironically sits in the shadow of the Cleveland Browns Headquarters, has about 11,000 students, a number on par with the number of Division I football players.   How difficult would it be to predict which incoming Freshmen at Baldwin Wallace are going to be end up graduating and in the top 2% of their college class? 

Pretty damn hard.   

We all know that SAT or ACT scores might help us filter out 80% of the candidates.  But can you look at an SAT score and predict desire, discipline and toughness?  

Of course not.   And that my friends is why Draft Pundits are full of shit. The vast majority of NFL Draft pundits are watching film. Some pundits have contacts that they can inquire with about factors like discipline and character but no one pundit has the time to cover every candidate at that level of depth. Most NFL teams employ dozens of scouts.  That’s the level of scale required. 

 Are there extraordinary athletes who are so good that watching film is enough to predict their success?  Of course, there are a dozen or so of those every year but consider that most often success in the NFL comes down to far more factors that what an athlete puts on film:

Facts:

• No single draft pundit is speaking to all these athletes.   
• No one draft pundit is talking to all their coaches, friends and family. 

To determine the top 2% of any future performance is extraordinarily complex.  To have any chance of accuracy of predicting a potential NFL players success above an accuracy rate of 10% you need to measure far more than film, 40 yard dash times and bench presses.   You need to understand desire, discipline, toughness, and many other factors.  

Only NFL teams staffed with dozens of NFL Scouts have that comprehensive a view and I do believe that there are NFL teams that are good at scouting college players, some are great at scouting potential NFL players and some are even terrible.  Those NFL teams like the Browns who have invested in data and are good at eliminating bias from their process are the ones really hitting home runs, though a wise person might recommend to the Browns they start holding onto their first round picks... In spite of trading many first rounders, the Browns still hit the jackpot in later rounds these last few years with home runs like Dawand Jones and Martin Emerson.   That's no accident folks.

So I don't want to diminish how fun the NFL Draft is but when you pay your hard earned dollar to read a pundit's Draft Guide, just remember, that pundit is full of shit. 

Enjoy the 2024 NFL Draft! 

First Kick Return Touchdown in XFL History

Critical elements of success in the new NFL kickoff 

• Ball placement by the kicker away from the middle of the field
• Return team getting their read on the kick and setting up blocking
• Changing the direction of the return by reverse

The return team does this all right on this kickoff from the XFL, the kicking team does not.

New Kickoff Rule: Roster Impact

If you watch video from the XFL of their kickoffs it is clear that the talents needed on both a kickoff and kickoff return team are going to change significantly.

A few bullet point thoughts:

• The new kickoff return resembles an offensive play.
• for example breaking down a standard screen pass:
• on a screen, after reading pass, linebackers drop into coverage and are about 10 yards back when the pass is thrown to the flat
• defensive backs have dropped back at least 15 to 20 yards
• at the point the ball is caught, what we as fans will see is not too far off from the start of a kickoff. Defenders 10 yards off the line of scrimmage looking to tackle an offensive ball carrier with blocking in front of him. 

The new kickoff requires many of the skills required to defend a screen.  Speed is not as critical as the ability to get off blocks

•     result:  More linebackers will be used on kickoffs, fewer DB's

• The kickoff return team needs to be good at open field blocking.  I can envision starting offensive linemen playing a lot on kick return.   Think about Wyatt Teller blocking on a kick return.  Pancake heaven! 

And what about the kicker?  You will need your kicker to be able to place the ball between the goal line and 20.  Accurate ball placement to one side will also be super important.  Can every placekicker whose lifetime of training is tailored to kicking straight and true do that? 

Conclusion:  Rosters might carry an extra linebacker that in the past carried an extra D Lineman.  Who knows, some teams may even carry two kickers because there are going to be an average of 6 extra plays per game that count.   Why?   Because 80% of kickoffs resulted in touchbacks last season.   Under the new rule at most it's anticipated over 80% of kickoffs will result in a return.   That's 6 extra plays per game.   Significant enough to change a game or two every season.   That is bound to touch roster building