The 2019 draft class for the Cincinnati Bengals keeps looking worse and worse in the immediate returns area.
Drew Sample is the latest setback. The second-round rookie suffered a sprained ankle in mid-November and hasn’t hit the field since. Saturday, the team shifted him to injured reserve and called up Trayvon Henderson off the practice squad to compensate for losing Brandon Wilson.
So ends Drew Sample’s rookie year: Six targets, five catches, 30 yards.
Sample was a controversial pick at the time as spending a borderline top-50 pick on a blocking tight end isn’t something teams normally do sheerly based on value.
But this goes beyond Sample. The bad luck for this draft class started over the summer when first-round pick Jonah Williams went down for the year.
It hasn’t been much better from there. Third-round linebacker Germaine Pratt has struggled. Fourth-round pick Renell Wren doesn’t see the field often. The other fourth-rounder, Ryan Finley, a guy they traded up to get, lasted just three games. And yet another, Michael Jordan, got yanked from the starting lineup. Four late-round picks haven’t done anything.
This wouldn’t be a problem on a good team — teams that don’t need help from rookie classes right away can withstand these sorts of problems. But this is even more problematic for a Bengals team in rebuild mode. These rookies continue to largely miss critical developmental snaps, essentially shifting their rookie seasons to next year.
Unfortunately, Sample shifting to IR is just the latest move in a continued trend.
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