Cincinnati Bengals: Recent draft picks can round elite defense into form

The Cincinnati Bengals don’t have the best track record at the NFL Draft, but four recent picks have the potential to round an elite defense into form.

The Cincinnati Bengals have been stuck in football limbo. Cincinnati is good enough to be in the postseason discussion on a yearly basis, but through 14 years with Marvin Lewis as the head coach, it hasn’t won a single playoff game.

Thankfully, as the Bengals stare down the reality that multiple draft picks have been squandered in recent years, three are displaying the signs of a potentially elite return.

Cincinnati is often viewed as a team that only goes as deep as A.J. Green, Geno Atkins, and Andy Dalton. The reality of the past decade or so, however, is that talent has never been the issue for the Bengals.

Late-game execution has been a consistent flaw during the Lewis era, but simply matching up player-for-player with the opposition has been a manageable task.

Unfortunately, the Bengals’ recent history of draft picks has been rather underwhelming. They’ve reached for players in the first round, and while that’s certainly acceptable, it looks significantly worse on the organization when it doesn’t work out.

Thankfully for Atkins and the defense, there have been a select few draft picks who are beginning to establish themselves as potentially elite players.