(05-01-2021, 10:42 AM)flgatorsandjags Wrote:

(05-01-2021, 10:39 AM)TheO-LineMatters Wrote: They haven't seen him in a game though. That is the only way to scout a player accurately. Lots of guys can run around in gym shorts and look like they can play football, but that doesn't mean they can. Trainers and coaches are merely guessing that he will play like he did in 2018, because he hasn't even played an entire game since then. This is not a hard concept.

You had problem putting Sewell to the Bengals at 5 though who didn't play a game last year

One season is a lot different than 2 seasons and one was due to Covid and the other to injury and Covid.

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(05-01-2021, 10:43 AM)Bullseye Wrote:

(05-01-2021, 10:30 AM)TheO-LineMatters Wrote: He has no information on him since one game in 2019. That's hardly enough to judge a guy on. An informed decision has to have evidence behind it and there hasn't been a shred of evidence since that time. What has he done since then? Has he improved? Has he regressed? There is simply no way of knowing until he faces real competition in a real game. We might as well of thrown a dart at a bunch of names with this pick. It would've made just as much sense. You cannot rationally select a guy based on what he did in one full season 2 years ago. That's nuts! Even if he does supplant one of the OT's (which I desperately hope he does,) I will not credit the front office for it, because it will be based on luck, not research. There is nothing to research since 2019.

My thing is it took me a minute tops to find game footage of him.  I'm sure with their scouting and various contacts, they could have gotten more coaches footage and insight into him.  There was SOME basis of information...but the Covid issue on top of that is what complicated things. Being generally risk averse, I share many of your concerns about a guy being out that long being a 2nd round pick.  But I won't say there's zero basis for their decision.  He has some good traits going for him.  I think at the end of the day, a lot of your opinion amounts to holding his decision to sit out during Covid against him.  Considering very few people knew the particulars of Covid, I can't blame people for sitting out.  Heck, the PAC-12 and Big 10 didn't know if they were going to play,   and many schools wound up playing truncated seasons.  Were there no Covid and Little came out after 2019, how would you have felt about him then?  Sewell sitting out didn't dissuade you from advocating the Bengals take him at 5.

If he wasn't coming off a serious, season ending injury the year before, I wouldn't care about him opting out last season. But we need to see how that knee holds up in real game situations. Sewell had no injury before he sat out. Little did. Sewell sat out 1 year, Little was out 2 years. Big difference. Huge difference.

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