In the most expensive offseason of any NFL team, the Bengals roared into this draft and by the time they were done Saturday at dinnertime they had many graders eating out of their hands.
The Sporting News gave them an A. CBS Spots gave them an A-minus. Pro Football Focus went B-plus. SI.com went B, just like ESPN's Who The Hell is Mel Kiper.
In the span of a week, the Bengals showed they can cleverly maneuver their way around a draft board to cap a month of moves that elbowed their way back into the AFC North conversation.
After trading their first pick to the Giants for game-changer Dexter Lawrence last weekend, they went back to New York Saturday morning to pull off another trade with the Jets for a draft-changer and took it from a solid double to an inside-the-parker by picking up two fourth-rounders.
"Personnel lead Duke Tobin did well without a first-rounder and getting Dexter Lawrence from the Giants should be considered adjacent to this class," bannered The Sporting News.
They punctuated their $200 million offseason defensive rebuild Friday night with their first two picks and then spent Saturday buttressing the NFL's best passing offense with players projected to help keep quarterback Joe Burrow the NFL's most accurate quarterback of all-time.
"They all have a lot of upside. That's just the cleanest way I can say it," said Bengals head coach Zac Taylor after it was over, taking a break from that golden time in the draft room of steaming pizza matching the hot pace of signing the undrafted class.
"I do think they are all really talented players. We brought them in here because we see a high ceiling — a high upside —with all of those guys."
This one was a draft for the grinders and the underdogs who proved their grades by beating adversity and obstacles. If the Bengals came in with their jaw set, determined to prove they deserve to be considered an AFC Super Bowl contender, then they put together a class with key players that love to prove they belong, too.
Texas A&M edge Cashius Howell barely was recruited out of his Kansas City high school and had to prove he was elite with three seasons at Bowling Green.
Auburn's Conner Lew missed half of his last, best year with a torn ACL in 2025 and still survived as one of the top consensus centers.
COVID forced Georgia wide receiver Colbie Young to start his career at Lackawanna Junior College out of a high school that hasn't produced an NFL player since Paul Brown started the Cleveland Browns. Then, when Young broke his leg midway through his last shot last season, he gritted it back to the postseason.
Navy defensive tackle Landon Robinson overcame the academy's strict protocols to get ready for the draft, as well as being the school's first first-team All-American in 40 years who somehow still didn't get invited to the NFL scouting combine.
So it was fitting that when a clearly disenchanted Texas tight end Jake Endries didn't surface until the Bengals picked him just before they picked Robinson in the seventh round, he offered to the Cincinnati media, "I'm going to make every team that didn't (bleeping) pick me pay."
It was also fitting that the Bengals brought in their own ultimate grinders to meet the media throughout the weekend. No one grinds like personnel people.
On Friday night, assistant general manager Mike Potts explained how when they put together the draft board after Thursday's first round, Howell somehow stayed at the top until they made their first selection of the draft nine picks into the second round.
Assistant general manager Trey Brown followed Potts into the media room Friday, and the old Jim Thorpe candidate when he played cornerback at UCLA was clearly delighted they got another old Pac-12 cover man in Tacario Davis. Except Davis may have about seven inches on Brown, that rare 6-4ish kind of cornerback contenders always seem to have.
(Hello Tre Flowers. Mr. Davis, meet Messrs. Kelce, Andrews and Freiermuth.)
"There aren't many guys really at that position, when you talk about being able to change directions, being able to line up and play physical at the line of scrimmage, but also then match the routes vertically. There aren't a lot of guys just athletically that can do that," Brown said.
Then early Saturday afternoon, after they picked Lew and Young in the fourth round, assistant general manager Steven Radicevic said it all when he eased behind the microphone.
"That was a fun fourth round there," Radicevic said. We got a kick-in with the trade."
Fun?
That's the kind of weekend it seemed to be in the draft room. They not only stayed true to their board, but the board also seemed to be true to them and didn't have many, if any, players chosen out from under them.
The draft swung with the Bengals looking at the 110th pick early in the fourth round. Oklahoma tackle Febechi Nwaiwu had been in the conversation on Friday night, and he was still there as Saturday began.
But the Bengals were still mulling a trade back. After giving up the 10th pick, they seemed to really want to get another pick before the end of the fourth, the last stop, it appeared, to get guys who can contribute right away.
"No doubt. When we went into it this morning, you're looking at the fourth round and you have 32 or so players that you have stacked up, and you feel like all 32 of those players can help you," Radicevic said. "They're not all the same position, but you feel like they can help you. After that round, there might be a dip. When you have an opportunity to get another pick in that round to where a player is going to play for you this year, you do it."
When the Texans picked Nwaiwu at 106, that seemed to be a sign. The Jets wanted to move up to take Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik, and the Bengals couldn't resist New York's fourth at 128 (Lew) and 140 (Young). Enough so they also threw in their Tom Brady pick in the sixth at 199.
Lew could be the heir apparent to center Ted Karras. The 6-4 Young looks to be drafted in the same tall, talented Bengals mold that began with Cris Collinsworth 45 years ago, continued through Chris Henry, A.J. Green, and now Tee Higgins gives 50-50 ball clinics every Sunday. Higgins got to play with Green after idolizing him. Now Young gets to play with Higgins after admiring him ever since he attended a camp ten years ago where Higgins participated in while he was at Clemson.
Lew and Young? Bengals head coach Zac Taylor confirmed Saturday that if he knew those would be his guys on Friday night, there would have been sweet dreams.
Oh, there were needs. They had to come out of the thing with a No. 3 cornerback behind Dax Hill and DJ Turner II, and they got Davis. They needed a backup center who can play pretty quickly and they got Lew. But the thing that Taylor liked is they didn't have to strain or reach.
"Even though we came into the draft with some spots we wanted to hit, I never felt like, 'We have to take this position so let's take this guy.' It was never that way just by the way the draft fell, which is exciting," Taylor said. "We felt like we were able to hit positions of need, but with the value we really wanted. I just feel really good about the way it fell for us."
On a weekend they reminded the world they are one of the league's most dangerous teams with a healthy Burrow and a competent defense, the Bengals still have a good enough roster that they also had the luxury of not reaching and straining to fill a hole.
Take a look at the first four picks. Howell on the edge, Davis behind Hill and Turner, Lew behind Karras and Young in the mix with Andri Iosivas for the No. 3 receiver, and they'll have time to develop. They had needs, but it seemed like the board gave them their best player up there. Prime example being the first pick. Howell at No. 41.
"Oftentimes, we sat on a player for 25 picks and got him a lot of times," Taylor said. "Any time you draft a player, you probably saw them slightly higher than a lot of other people because that's why they were there for you to draft. But it's also great when the scouts have a belief in a guy, and the coaching staff has a belief in (the same) guy."
But they won't be sitting around long when the AFC North begins to boil.
"We're not looking to draft practice squad players," Taylor said after a long week the Bengals punched back into the race with their grinders. "We're looking to draft guys that we envision have an opportunity to come in here and compete. It doesn't mean it's always going to play out that way, but guys that we think can compete and help us win now and have roles for them in the future."
