Sunday, April 11, 1999A layman's plan to fix the Bengals on draft day
Trade down for extra picks and take a lineman first
BY GEOFF HOBSON
The Cincinnati EnquirerWhat if you ruled the NFL Draft for the Bengals?
What if you walked into Spinney Field Saturday and arm wrestled President and General Manager Mike Brown for the keys to the war room?
And you won?
“Get me Mike Ditka right now,” you say nicely to Jan Sutton, his secretary.
You know Brown has his heart set on taking a franchise quarterback with the third pick, despite the David Klingler dart board hanging in shreds on the draft board.
You know the Bengals' philosophy. You win with blue-chip players at the top of the draft.
But you vow to take the Bengals from punch lines to the playoffs in the next 36 hours in a much different way.
You will do it by trading your disenfranchised franchise player and your high-risk, high first-round pick, nearly doubling your number of draft picks to 16.
You opt for a quantity of picks desinged to upgrade the team's long-time trouble spots on both lines, in the secondary and special teams.
Since Mel Kiper Jr., is on ESPN, you call in Jerry Jones, the former Mariemont druggist who publishes the draft analysis The Drugstore List. He can also supply Brown with sedatives when you start picking up the phone.
Jones, his head spinning three revolutions, vows to exorcise the ghost of Klingler.
So you strike a deal with Ditka, the New Orleans coach who is offering all six Saints' picks to trade up from No. 12 to draft Texas running back Ricky Williams.
“But,” says Brown, suddenly pale, “the Saints don't have a second-round pick.”
“Watch this,” you say and you mesmerize Dolphins coach Jimmy Johnson with your phone manners.
He gives you his second- and third-round picks this year, plus his second-rounder next year for Carl Pickens, the Bengals' free-agent wide receiver who would rather stick needles in his eyes than play here again.
OK, Johnson would never do it. In fact, the Dolphins have no interest in Pickens. But maybe Draft Day hysterics take command.
“With the 12th pick,” you say, “give me L.J. Shelton, tackle, Eastern Michigan.
Meet your left tackle for the next 10 years. At 6-foot-5, 340 pounds, he's got some basketball feet bequeathed him by his father, former NBA player Lonnie Shelton.
Brown isn't happy. If he was going to trade, he wanted a team with two first-round picks. Now you're looking for a quarterback with the 33rd pick and all the big boys are gone.
You take Washington's Brock Huard over Tulane's 6-foot Shaun King because he's bigger at 6-foot-5, has a gun, and would have gone higher if it all didn't fall around him this past season.
Bruce Coslet is intrigued by King, so he's not very happy with you. Hey, Coach. There seems to be a little Boomer in Huard with that size.
And, easy, Mike. You're two best quarterbacks ever have been a second-rounder (Esiason) and third rounder (Ken Anderson).
Now with Miami's second-rounder you go for a cornerback in USC's Daylon McCutcheon at No. 54. The Bengals fear his slight frame at 5-8 and 180 pounds takes him off the board as a starter.
But Ashley Ambrose wouldn't come back here for $4 million and West Virginia's Charles Fisher and North Carolina's Dre Bly are long gone at the top of the round. Hey, those guys aren't No. 1 corners, either.
“What about the defensive front?” Jones asks. “You need something.”
With the Bengals' third-round pick at No. 65, you go for North Carolina defensive end-tackle Russell Davis. He was nagged by a bad ankle this past season, but held his own on a defense that has graduated many to the NFL, including Bengals linebacker Brian Simmons.
At No. 71, the Saints' third-round pick, the safeties are the most enticing players on the board. The local kid, Tony George of Winton Woods High, the Florida playmaker who had 53 career special teams tackles, is probably gone. A pure safety, he more than survived at cornerback in the tough SEC.
But we'll stay in state and take Ohio State safety Damon Moore at No. 71. He loves to play the run and hit.
Back to Miami's third-rounder at No. 84. SMU cornerback Jacoby Rhinehart isn't all that fast or big at 5-10, 185 pounds, but he also played receiver and can anticipate the ball, return kicks and Jones says he can be a nickel guy right now, although you can't convince the Bengals' coaches.
At No. 96 and No. 105 at the top of the fourth round, let's keep going on the defensive line with Georgia end Antonio Cochran and Nebraska tackle Jason Wiltz.
Cochran has a knack of getting to quarterbacks but not sacking them. Yet the Bengals need pressure any way they can get it. Wiltz is a reach at this point. He needs more down-to-down consistency and at times has trouble getting off blocks. But at 6-3, 308 pounds, Wiltz showed ability to stuff the middle of a historically sound defense.
Now Jim Lippincott, the Bengals director of college and pro personnel, is shaking his head. Cochran will be gone by then from the ranks of a thin defensive line group, he says. But you say, “But then we don't get any corners.”
Welcome to the draft room dilemma.
“By the way,” Lippincott says. “Who's going to play quarterback?”
OK, OK, let's go to No. 127, the Bengals' fifth-round pick. It's time to address the offensive line again. Even though Tulsa's Jason Mills has journeyman backup written all over him at right tackle, he has passion and strength and is a versatile sort who can move to guard.
You're nosing around for a blocking fullback at No. 136. Maybe Arizona State's Jeff Paulk. But an aggressive, opportunistic safety in Florida State's Dexter Jackson just might be on the board. Kiper says he occasionally plays a little out of control, but the kid also loves to hit and was a prep state champion in hurdles. A solid special teamer.
That's the whole idea. Shore up as many spots as you can and special teams leads the list for the Bengals.
Jones is now foaming at the mouth. He wants that 161st pick in the sixth round because he thinks Tennessee cornerback Steve Johnson will be there. Lippincott says he'll be gone by then, even though Kiper had rated him the draft's 44th best corner.
Jones remembers the 5-foot-11 Johnson shutting down Florida State wide receiver Peter Warrick in the Fiesta Bowl, which could vault him to the fourth or fifth round.
At 167, let's do the unBengal thing and get a small wideout in Florida's 5-8 Travis McGriff. He had eight 100-yard games in averaging nearly 20 yards for his 70 catches.
Forget the seventh round. The room is in striped anarchy.
Mike Brown is shaking his head. Corners who are 5-8, inconsistent and sackless defensive linemen, a quarterback who might have gone in the third round.
Anyone see a difference maker?
Lippincott is seething about solving the crisis at quarterback and cornerback with marginal picks.
“When you trade down like that,” Lippincott says, “you trade away just enough not to be good.”
Coslet is still snarling at you, reminding you you could have had Cade McNown at No. 12 and still taken offensive tackles later.
Hey, if it's the two first-round picks you want, let's call Minnesota. Word is the Vikings are getting nervous because Arizona cornerback Chris McAlister's 4.3-second 40-yard dash time has the 6-foot-1, 206-pounder shooting up the board.
The Vikings may not get a corner at No. 11, so they trade the Bengals the 11th and 29th picks for the third pick and get the best corner in the draft in Georgia's Champ Bailey.
Chicago could offer the Vikes a better deal by swapping No. 7 and No. 11, but maybe we get there first.
So at No. 11, the Bengals take the best defensive linemen on the board, LSU's Anthony McFarland. He's only 6 feet, 300 pounds, but the SEC couldn't move him out of the middle for four years with his long arms and quickness. Meet the Bengals' nose tackle for the millennium.
“Excuse me,” says the ever-polite Lippincott, “but tell me who's going to take the snaps?”
Then you won't like this one either. At No. 29, you want a left offensive tackle like West Virginia's Solomon Page, although at times he exhibits a Melvin Tuten-like lack of consistent intensity. But he looks to be a more natural left tackle than Tuten.
You've still got that Pickens' trade, so take Huard at No. 33 and McCuthcheon at No. 54 and ...
“We wish this is a year we could trade down, but we need the quarterback,” says Mike Brown of the Trinity of Akili Smith, Donovan McNabb and Tim Couch. “If we had a productive quarterback, we wouldn't be in this position. You start trading down, you miss out on those guys.
“There is an argument against us taking the quarterback,” Brown says. “The sure thing is Champ Bailey. One out of two chances, he's going to make it. There's a 1 in 5 chance for a highly drafted quarterback, so you can argue we're gambling not taking Bailey and we'd love to have him.”
Like deals for veteran corners Ambrose and Ryan McNeil, Brown doesn't buy your plan.
Hey, it takes two to trade down. And it's rare to get the guy on the other line to trade up and take a gamble like the one you want to avoid when the only certainty is jacking your salary cap.
“But look how Jimmy Johnson got Dallas and Miami back to the playoffs,” you say. “With extra draft picks.”
“Guess what?” Brown says. “Miami and Dallas already had the quarterback.”
You put your elbow on the table and ask, “Two out of three?”
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