It'll be around 10:30 or so Thursday night when NFL commissioner Roger Goodell steps up to the podium in Chicago and announces the name of the player the Bengals have chosen with the first of their nine picks in this year's draft. It'll be the 21st of the 32 picks made in tonight's first-round extravaganza. There will be some ooos and ahhhs, some head nodding of approval, a couple head shakes or Mr. Spock eye brows lifted out of curiosity.
It's all great NFL-created drama. Reality TV at its most-hyped for the next three days.
While the hoopla surrounding the NFL draft is overblown, the process itself is the life blood of any organization. The way the salary cap system is set up makes it so. Some organizations are just better at the process than others.
That's why the most important part of this year's draft for the Bengals is their draft classes of 2012 and 2013. They chose a total of 20 players in those two drafts. Sixteen of those players are still on their roster this offseason, including 2012 first-rounders Dre Kirkpatrick and Kevin Zeitler whose fifth-year options for the 2016 season were picked up this week.
This is the time the Bengals need to see dividends from the investments they've put into those recent classes start paying off.
There is a cycle in the NFL. New draft picks are shiny and exciting, full of potential. Then they get put on the practice field and get a little dirty. That initial shine is lustered by the time those players are into the middle of their rookie seasons. It's up to the coaching staff to buff them up.
Teams always have different needs they're looking to fill through the draft. The Bengals can look straight to either line of scrimmage for their most pressing areas this year, for different reasons. The offensive line has the prospect of three tackles entering the final years of their contracts. The Bengals have to prepare for the future. The defensive line needs more production in the immediacy. If there is a top-end pass rusher available or another body who can push the pocket from the inside at No. 21, it'll be hard for the Bengals to pass up.
Regardless if a defensive lineman is selected, the Bengals need the likes of Brandon Thompson, Devon Still and Margus Hunt to raise the level of their play. All three were picked in the first three rounds of the 2012 and 2013 drafts. Thompson has played the most, and played solidly, in his three seasons. Still has yet to reach the potential the Bengals saw in him when they picked him in the second round in 2012 out of Penn State, although certainly his off-field family situation with daughter Leah's battle against pediatric cancer has been a factor in his slower development.
Hunt had played just four years of football when he was chosen in the second round in 2013. The Estonia native and former three-time World Junior Track and Field champion was viewed as a project. An ankle injury cost him four games in 2014 and limited him for much of the season. Even with the Bengals bringing back end Michael Johnson as a free agent after one season in Tampa Bay, this is the season Hunt has to prove he was worth the pick.
Throw tight end Tyler Eifert, the No. 1 pick in 2013 who missed all but eight plays last season with a dislocated elbow, and safety Shaun Williams into that group as well. Williams was the third-round pick in 2013 out of Georgia who has become a valuable member on special teams but who has seen minimal action on defense. He's got to earn that time this season along with starters Reggie Nelson and George Iloka.
The Bengals have four picks among the first 99 draft choices this weekend and six in the first four rounds. They will have a chance to help themselves. For them to really be better in 2015, however, it's going to the players they drafted in 2012 and 2013 who are going to have to have the biggest impact.
