Over the weekend the Cincinnati Bengals received many great compliments on their draft and overall received some very high draft grades. While draft grades mean nothing, it does show that many experts believe that Cincinnati added at the right positions at the correct time during the draft to fit their needs. Let’s take a look at who will be wearing the orange and black this season:

· Round 1, Pick 18 – OT Amarius Mims (Georgia). Mims is massive at 340 pounds and 6-7. He joins both Browns to increase the offensive line struggles. I will never complain about added protection for Joe Burrow. There are however some injury concerns regarding Mims in his history.

· Round 2, Pick 49 – DT Kris Jenkins (Michigan). This is my favorite pick of the draft. With Reader gone, Cincinnati needs someone to stop the run and hold down the line of scrimmage. Cincinnati needed someone like Jenkins on this roster.

· Round 3, Pick 80 – WR Jermaine Burton (Alabama). I am still unsure how a deep threat like Burton remained in the draft this long. He will open the field up for Ja’Marr and Tee this season in a quest for a Super Bowl ring. Cincinnati needed to add some depth at this position, as Cincinnati will eventually be without Tee Higgins on this roster.

· Round 3, Pick 97 – DT McKinnley Jackson (Texas A&M) – Some additional depth at the position and it will be needed with the running threats throughout the AFC North. PFF stated that Jackson had 34 run stops since 2022.

· Round 4, Pick 115 – TE Erick All (Iowa) – This is probably my least favorite pick of the draft. With Gesicki and Hudson, along with Sample’s blocking, I didn’t see the need for this. He is a local kid to the area and I hope this works out.

· Round 5, Pick 149 – CB Josh Newton (TCU) – Newton is a mature player and someone who could be a “plug and play” guy to fill in snaps for Taylor-Britt and Turner.

· Round 6, Pick 194 – TE Tanner McLachlan (Arizona) – This pick made more sense on the back end of the draft. I am not sure he will make an impact on this roster with Cincinnati’s depth at this position.

· Round 6, Pick 214 – DE Cedric Johnson (Ole Miss) – Cedric has speed and strength at his position and was the best player left on the board.

· Round 7, Pick 224 – DB Daijahn Anthony (Ole Miss) – Back to back Ole Miss picks. Anthony lacks size, but he is all over the field and provides speed to the back room.

· Round 7, Pick 237 – C Matt Lee (Miami) – This may be the steal of the draft for Cincinnati. He is the highest graded center in the draft and is elite statistically in pass block, true pass sets, and 5-7 step concepts. How he fell this far down is beyond me.

Moose 2.0

I hate to have a negative section two weeks in a row, but since calling out Santiago Espinal, he has really turned it around. Let’s hope the same happens for Jeimer Candelario, as he truly is reminding me of an even worse Mike Moustakas. Cincinnati signed Candelario to a three-year $45 million contract with all of it guaranteed. He should be charged with robbery at this point in the season.

He is batting .159 with an OPS of .580 and doesn’t have a hit in his last 19 at-bats. He is nearly an automatic out, has defensive swings, and has honestly been worse than I could have ever imagined. I hope he turns it around, but he honestly could use an IL stint at this point. If he was anyone else, he wouldn’t be in the lineup, but Cincinnati gave him a major deal which leads to at-bats. This is even worse than the Wil Myers debacle and that’s hard to accomplish. He has 34 strikeouts already, not too far behind Joey Gallo and Kyle Schwarber, without any power like those two to make up for their lack of average. I hope to be eating my words come June, but for now, this is looking like a historically bad signing. At least with Moose, we could yell his name and it sounded cool.

Standings

As of Monday morning the Cincinnati Reds were sitting with a winning record at 15-13, just 2.5 games back behind first place in the NL Central. They hold a plus-21 run differential and seem to be extremely hot or extremely cold, with no in between. They are either scoring 7-plus runs or being held to three hits in some really boring games offensively. This season is still quite young and I think the return of Friedl will drastically improve this offense, along with getting back Marte halfway through the year. This team still has a roster capable of winning the division and the optimism in me still believes they will find a way into the playoffs. With the Padres and Orioles on the schedule next, this team needs to stay above .500 as the scheduled doesn’t get any easier through the month of May. If they can float around two or three games above .500 baseball heading into June, I will feel comfortable in believing that this team will bring playoff baseball back to GABP.

Matthew McAdow is a Peebles resident. He works in human resources in the nuclear industry and has been an avid Cincinnati fan his entire life. He is an Ohio Christian University graduate and has always enjoyed giving an honest opinion on multiple topics regarding Cincinnati sports.