How are those rookies performing?

[THE DUKE]

6 hours ago, Humble_Beast said:

Bengals had a great draft. I'm happy for you guys. I remember all the draft gurus saying it would be a joke for you guys to pass on an OL for Chase. 

No doubt Sewell would have helped the oline tremendously, but we likely don't make the playoffs without Chase.  He's a game changer, and you need to take those when you have the chance.

NOW, the Bengals need to go heavy oline.  Need at least two quality starters from FA (Scherff?) and the Draft (Kinnard, Lindenbaum, Penning, Zion).

[Forge]

Final season update for the 49ers: 

• Trey Lance - Sat most of the year. 2.5 games of experience. Looked pretty good against the Texans, less so against the Cardinals. YOu can absolutely see why the 49ers went after him, even bypassing Mac and Fields. But there's still a ways to go here. Still not a natural thrower and his accuracy is consistently inconsistent. Not enough of a sample size to really be certain or scared about him as a prospect, but I'm excited. We will see how it plays out. 

 

• Aaron Banks - This pick looks just awful right now. He's a guard from Notre Dame that played 5 snaps this year as a second round pick and the guy in front of him, Daniel Brunskill, is clearly the weakest link of the 49ers offensive line. The reason this pick is scary is that Banks isn't some young prospect...he's already 24 years old and went to a top notch program at Notre Dame. Physically, he's maxed out. We will see if he's better suited for an offense that is arranged around a Trey Lance skillset, but there's some concern here. 

 

• Trey Sermon. This pick also looks pretty bad. He never earned any trust and the only time he got playing time was when we were down 4 running backs before him. He is a guy that you would think would pair better as an inside zone runner with Lance, however the problem is that I really believe that is where Mitchell excelled. Mitchell was much better than I thought he would be running inside and he doesn't have the explosion or long speed to makea  killing on the outside...so I'm not sure where that leaves Sermon who had several opportunities to make up ground and simply didn't. There's no doubt that he enters next year as no better than the third option in the backfield, and that could easily be pushed to 4th if the team re-signs Mostert. 

 

• Ambry Thomas - Really turned it on at the end of the year. Suffered when he was first starting, but he was so much improved by the end of the year that as a fanbase, we were really lamenting when he was going to miss the Green Bay playoff game. He still has pretty poor ball skills, but he's pretty sticky in coverage. As long as he doesn't regress, this looks potentially like a really good selection (Adam Peters ftw! )

 

• Jaylon Moore - I liked the pick, though apparently we were going to try and make him a guard before we lost skule for the season and forced us to keep  him at tackle. He played very little. He started against the Colts in the rainstorm, and then had to play again against Jacksonville. That's where it fell apart. He messed up a couple of things and ended up in the dog house. He was inactive for most of the rest of the season and lost his job as the swing tackle to Colton McKivitz who didn't make the team out of camp and had never played tackle in the NFL until he started for Trent Williams in week 18. This year it was particularly notable how hard Shanny was on the rookies, so I'm not sure what to make of this. Being in the Shanny doghouse is not a good place to be and people never recover. 

 

• Deommodore Lenoir - Looked great in preseason and then messed up some zone coverages early in the season in terms of positioning and he was basically never heard from again. The belief is that he'll take over as slot corner last year with Williams likely not being re-signed. 

 

• Talanoa Hufanga - Good contributor on special teams. I'm concerned about long term viability in coverage. A lot of times where he just didn't look good. I really feel like he may have a linebacker conversion in his future, or perhaps a scheme safety change being made. I could see him as a an overhang type or box 3rd safety. 

 

• Elijah Mitchell - He looked great. As I mentioned, much better inside than I thought he was going to be, but far inferior on the outside than I thought. His speed was actually underwhelming for a guy that was said to be sub 4.4. Prime example of why track speed and football speed are different. He's a pretty good running back who runs far harder than he has any right to, but doesn't always show brilliant vision. He's also frequently nicked up. He's a committee back for sure, but a competent starting platoon guy. Good pick.