A few weeks back we updated the Bengals Futility - By the Numbers statistics to reflect the Bengals 4-12 record and failure to again make the playoffs. A reader emailed us some amazing stats regarding the Bengals Draft.
You may recall the Bengals press conference to announce Marvin's resigning, where Mikey used an incredibly convoluted stats to defend the player personnel and scouting departments: “The scouting thing is another criticism that rises up when we don’t do well. If you look at our record on scouting over the last 10 years, we rank 10th for the number of games played by players we drafted. I think we sank to 11th on the number of players who are in the league that we drafted, and we would be higher than that except for injuries that were serious that players like (David) Pollack suffered, or Chris Perry, or what happened with (Odell) Thurman, or what happened to Chris Henry. We had a number of those. It was disproportionate. I don’t apologize for our scouting. It’s an easy target, but if you look at the real facts, I think you’ll see it differently.”
So, Mike asked us to "look at the real facts," and here are a few regarding Bengals draft picks and the Pro Bowl:
- The Bengals have never had a draft pick make the Pro Bowl on Defense. They have had one player drafted on Defense make the Pro Bowl, but Tremain Mack made the Pro Bowl as a Kick Returner.
- Starting with the 1991 draft, the Bengals have drafted 7 players that have made the Pro Bowl with the Bengals. Some players have made the Pro Bowl with other teams, like Takeo Spikes and shockingly Justin Smith, but only 7 were with the Bengals.
- The last drafted Pro Bowl player is Carson Palmer.
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In 16 of 20 drafts, the Bengals drafted zero Pro Bowlers.
- Only Chad Johnson has gone to more than 4 Pro Bowls.
On the other hand, the Ravens started as a franchise in 1996, and they have drafted 14 Pro Bowl players and 8 First Team All Pro players.
The Bengals have drafted numerous Pro Bowl caliber players. The incredibly maddening reality is that their talent is squandered by a front office and coaching staff that does not create an environment for them to become great players.
If the Bengals can draft as well as they boast, then the problem simply is not with the players. The lawyer cannot have it both ways. Either he does not draft well. Or his awful organization squanderes the talent they draft. It is one or the other.
Posted by: doug murray | January 25, 2011 at 09:34 AM
Not here to completely dispute your argument, as I know the Bengals have not fared well in drafting Pro Bowl or All Pro players (I too have done in EXTENSIVE analysis of the Bengals draft over the past 10 years).
HOWEVER...you clearly didn't do your complete research when citing the Bengals have NEVER drafted a Pro Bowl player on defense. Both Krumrie and Fulcher had multiple Pro Bowl selections.
Not here to say it makes your argument invalid, but it's worth noting.
Posted by: Eric Kattus | January 25, 2011 at 09:48 AM
It wasn't overtly stated but the implication is pro bowl players drafted under Mike Brown as owner starting in 1991.
Posted by: Sleeping With Bieniemy | January 25, 2011 at 09:56 AM
@Doug
Completely agree. Surprised no reporter brought this point to MB during the PC.
Simple question: Mike, if you are drafting and picking up good players, as you argue the "facts" show, why have you lost so much? It's has to be the coaching (as ML sits there giggling) then, right?
Wonder what MB's response would be? Maybe this is why he does not do PCs? His failed logic and excuses don't wash...
Posted by: Joe | January 25, 2011 at 10:33 AM
You have to look at the time under Mike Brown only when examining the data. The Bengals before him were a different animal.
Posted by: Cwoodson2401 | January 25, 2011 at 10:34 AM
I guess that mamkes sense.
Posted by: Eric Kattus | January 25, 2011 at 10:40 AM
Wasn't Whit in the running for the Pro Bowl this year?
Also, the fact that Joseph and/or Hall didn't make the Pro Bowl last year would be a travesty if it weren't for Revis and that guy in Oakland whose name I can't spell (Nnamdi Asomugha?). Of course, the defense returned to sucktitude for much of this year, so there's that.
Posted by: Wyatt | January 25, 2011 at 11:23 AM
"You have to look at the time under Mike Brown only when examining the data. The Bengals before him were a different animal."
The article does not say "never under Mike Brown". It says "never". Now I for one took it the way the article-writer intended, but I think a correction\clarification is called for.
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Having said that, I think the Bengal draft statistics are a good example of the "Red Sea Symptom". For those unfamiliar with it, it's a reference to attempts to explain the Biblical story of Moses & the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. Depending on your perspective, either the miracle was that the Red Sea was parted or that the Egyptian army drowned in ankle-deep water. (Yes, there's a third option, work with me here).
Either
a> The Bengals are lousy judges of talent, or
b> The Bengals are lousy developers of talent.
Pick one :-)
Posted by: Tom C. Huskey | January 25, 2011 at 12:06 PM
Can't I pick both? Many Bengals drafts have seen lousy judgement - feel free to compile your own personal Top 10 busts - and a number of players go on to perform better once out of the clutches of the Bengals staff. And yes that would include Justin Smith. Brown's amazing stat about being ranked 10th in longest-serving suckitude is my own personal fav MB quote right now cos it illustrates so succinctly how moronic the man is. This is why he is upset at Carson - losing him valuable ground in the honorable and hotly contested prize of "who can keep the crappiest players the longest".
Posted by: DorsetBengal07 | January 25, 2011 at 01:31 PM
Following the disaster of a presser, Solomon Wilcots was interviewed by Mo Egger, and he said that most of the NFL is impressed with the Bengals when it comes to drafting (which shocked me). I wish I could remember his wording, but basically he said that what the Bengals suck at is development, not drafting. After thinking about that a minute, I got even more frustrated with MFB.
1) If SW is right and the NFL's smallest scouting dept really is pretty good, how much better could they be with an average sized staff? The stat in bold is freaking asinine, but the one after it is a respectable stat (if it is accurate). But I guess a small staff at #11 is cheaper/better to Mike than a normal sized staff in the top 10.
2) The lack of accountability that runs amuk through the franchise will naturally have a drag on player development. Expectations from the top are low, so the urgency to maximize talent is weak. Pride is the only motivator for coaches, not fear of being unemployed. So while a coach with a lot of pride like Zimmer works up his talent, a bengalized coach lacking pride like Bratkowski enjoys his regular bubble baths.
Posted by: Major Payne | January 25, 2011 at 01:33 PM
It's astounding seeing the Career Average rating of players drafted Pre Mike Brown.
Posted by: Kevin Jones | January 25, 2011 at 01:36 PM
Every word that comes out of Mike Brown's mouth is another indication of why he is unfit to be CEO (which is essentially what his role is with this team.) First of all, he throws out a stat that claims the Bengals "are in the top 10." The dubiousness of that stat aside (it's meaningless, as others have shown), MB seems content to be merely "in the top 10."
Do you think Steelers fans or Patriots fans would be happy with a top 10 finish??? Hell no! Nor should we be happy with it. Bottom Line: MB is clueless. Check this quote about Carson:
"We'll reach out to him and understand the things that are in his craw. Maybe there are things we can do that will appeal to him. We'll try to and see whether he can get it fit back together in the future."
In his CRAW? What owner talks like that? What's he going to do to appease him, offer him a free popcorn? Clueless!
Posted by: MikeBrownMolestsCollies | January 25, 2011 at 02:36 PM
The Bengals *before* Mike Brown weren't entirely different. They were better, but not exactly the Gods of talent judgement. Partly this was made up for by stockpiling draft picks via trades (something done a bit under Paul Brown but almost never under Mike Brown). Paul Brown achieved this quite often by trading away really good players like Bill Bergey who it could be argued might have helped get the team over the hump (beat the Steelers finally). Examples: the Bengals had 3 first round picks in 1977, 2 in 1978, 2 in 1979, 3 in 1984 (because Steve Young was smart enough to flee to the USFL!), 2 in 1985 (couldn't sign Hunley in 1984), and 2 in 1986. So over the course of that 10 year period, the Bengals had 18 first round draft picks.
They haven't had a Pro Bowl linebacker since the 1970s and I think the total number of Pro Bowl appearances by Bengals linebackers is 2! Now that in itself wouldn't be terribly bad, except that linebacker is the position most often picked by the Bengals throughout the team's history in the first three rounds of the draft (and the position where either talent judgement or talent development, or both, has been terrible since the era of Bill Bergey).
With all the extra picks that Paul Brown used to stockpile, in their entire history of first round draft picks only 7 appeared in a Pro Bowl (Carson and Willie Anderson were selected by the bastard son... meaning only 5 from the Paul Brown era were Pro Bowlers)
So in summary the Bengals have never really had a top notch method of finding talent which explains why they've never won the Super Bowl or had that many playoff appearances (or had a top defense since Paul Brown was coach excepting about 2 years)
Posted by: HappySameYearFromYourCincinnatiGroundhogs | January 25, 2011 at 03:41 PM
Groundhog, great post! But I think you fail to make the connection between bringing those 18 first round draft picks in 10 years, and the fact that the Bengals WENT TO THE SUPER BOWL twice as a result of those 10 years. Obviously trading good talent in exchange for bringing in the talent you want is part (not all) of every great team's strategy. You need to wheel and deal your way to get the right mix. You have to have a nose for what the right mix aught to be. And you can't be cheap or conservative about it with either money or talent itself.
The Bengals don't do this. They wrap their Christmas presents with newspaper. Paul Brown...can we really just brush him off so nonchalantly? The guy was probably a top-3 football mind behind Lombardi and perhaps Rockne. He coached the only true NFL dynasty (1950's Browns), coached Ohio State to its first national title, started 2 NFL franchises, and the Bengals wouldn't have been what they were in the 1980's without him. He's a legend of the game.
Mike Brown never coached a down in his life...and his biggest accomplishment was being the starting QB for Dartmouth. Saying the Bengals didn't do things that drastically differently under Mike vs. Paul is sort of misleading. One guy was a football legend involved with a team that went to two Super Bowls, the other is probably the worst owner in the league's long history. The results don't lie. Mike does things quite differently, even if it's merely incompetently.
Posted by: LeftCoastWhoDey | January 25, 2011 at 08:08 PM
Organize a protest for the draft! People will protest they are mad!
Posted by: Luke | January 25, 2011 at 09:35 PM
@LeftCoastWhoDey:
I agree that Paul Brown was a genius and a legend of the game, but as an owner/GM he was a stubborn mule who produced mixed results. Stockpiling high draft picks is generally good which is why Bill Belicheat does it too. But had PB hired Bill Walsh in 1976 the Bengals might have won multiple Super Bowls in the late 1970s and the 1980s. Had Paul Brown eventually let Bill Walsh become his General Manager, rather than turning the team over to his special needs child, things might be different today. (Walsh would have promoted a guy like Seifert to HC... someone in that class... rather than David Shula)
In summary: Paul Brown, football genius... but somewhere between mediocre and above average as an owner/GM, with two Super Bowl appearances to his credit but not that many trips to the playoffs and not ever able to build a consistently good defense or draft elite defensive players.
Mike Brown: WORST OWNER/GM in the history of any organized sport in the known Universe who is so much worse than his nearest competitors in the field of being bad that an objective observer would think he is intentionally sabotaging his own product.
If we could go back to Paul Brown today, of course I would gladly take that in a heartbeat. As Bengals coach his defenses were quite good in spite of the fact that he did not actually have otherwordly talent at every position. That's because he was such a great HC.
Posted by: HappySameYearFromYourCincinnatiGroundhogs | January 26, 2011 at 12:50 AM
Slight correction in your stated numbers. I come up with 5 drafts that put a Bengal draft pick in the Pro Bowl as a Bengal. 1992 draft: C Pickens, 1996: draft W Anderson, 1997 draft: Dillon & T Mack, 2001 draft: C Johnson, R Johnson, & TJ and Palmer drafted in 2003.
That makes 8 players drafted as a Bengal appearing in the Pro Bowl as a Bengal.
I want to ask...Was the 1991 draft Mikey boy's first draft or was the 1992 draft of David Klingler his first draft as owner and GM? I have in my head that Klingler was MB first pick, and passing on Troy Vincent.
Regardless...Still pretty damn futile.
Posted by: Pill | January 26, 2011 at 10:05 AM
Pill....The Bengals have plenty more "Drafted players that made the Pro Bowl" than what you just came up with.
The comment was "drafted defensive players that made the Pro Bowl."
Also, which I was confused on as well, the comment was meant to read, "Defensive Players drafted under Mike Brown that have made the Pro Bowl." ....which is zero.
Posted by: Eric Kattus | January 26, 2011 at 10:19 AM
Eric Kattus,
Actually, no they haven't, at least not DRAFTED players under the ownership of Mike Brown that were Pro Bowlers as Bengals. Since he took over, those players I listed were thee only Mike Brown drafted players that have reached Pro Bowl status while in a Bengal uniform, at least according to Wikipedia.
SINCE 1991:
• The Bengals have never had a draft pick make the Pro Bowl on Defense. They have had one player drafted on Defense make the Pro Bowl, but Tremain Mack made the Pro Bowl as a Kick Returner.
•Starting with the 1991 draft, the Bengals have drafted 8 players TOTAL that have made the Pro Bowl with the Bengals. Some players have made the Pro Bowl with other teams, like Takeo Spikes and shockingly Justin Smith, but only 8 TOTAL were with the Bengals.
•The last drafted Pro Bowl player is Carson Palmer.
•In 15 of the last 20 drafts, the Bengals drafted zero Pro Bowlers regardless of position.
Posted by: Pill | January 26, 2011 at 11:31 AM
How many players have we drafted and made the team for 2,3 years and then never played in the NFL again? This shows that we keep bottom of the barrell stiffs that can't play anywhere else but with Mike Browns Bengals. This would inflate Mikeys top 10 stat.
Posted by: Theme of losing | January 26, 2011 at 03:46 PM