I recently wrote a response article to Bleacher Report’s story on the Bengal’s free agency haul which can be found here. I tweeted this to the author, Brent Sobleski (@brentsobleski), and he responded almost immediately which was pretty awesome. It was not a spirited debate but we certainly have different ideas about position groups and how they are benefiting the Bengals lineup. Here is the convo:
First, I want to thank Brent for engaging me on this. Twitter is an easy place to sling poo back and forth at each other and he rebutted well. Second, I want to applaud myself for not being an a-hole in response and telling him how little he knows about the team….the dude definitely knows football! Third, we are agreeing to disagree I suppose but I will stay firm that our DT depth is much better than TE. Let’s compare:
DT – Josh Tupou, Ryan Glasgow and Renell Wren
Tupou had a really good year last year and if you told me that Reader or Atkins were injured I think Tupou would be a solid next man up. No one wants to see either one of our giants go down but even Glasgow (though not stellar) is still going to get some rotational snaps. I see Wren as the odd man out because I really believe that the Bengals are only going to keep four on the roster.
TE – Drew Sample, Cethan Carter and Mason Schreck
Everyone hopes that Sample is going to be the starter since he was a second round pick but he has a lot to prove in the preseason. I expect him to ease into the lineup and get 30% of the snaps to see where he can be at in terms of progress since Uzomah is likely the penciled in starter. Carter and Schreck are retreads and could easily be waived and no one would notice. This group wasn’t so bad when Eifert was a part of it but now it is a bit dingy with a little hope in Sample and maxed out upside for everyone else. It is likely the Bengals keep three TE’s but if they are not planning on using them in the pass game a lot then who knows they could go with just two and keep more WRs, RBs, or OL. If that is the case then there is no real depth on this roster at TE.