[jwplayer NbHm3jlP]
The big praise for the 2020 Cincinnati Bengals draft class continues.
This time it (again) comes from ESPN’s Mel Kiper, who loved a certain late-round pick by Duke Tobin and the front office.
After noting the Bengals essentially had three first-round picks (Jonah Williams’ return, Joe Burrow and Tee Higgins), Kiper isolated one player — seventh-round linebacker Markus Bailey — as one of the draft’s most underrated picks.
Kiper noted the following on the First Draft podcast:
“Every one of these picks was a round earlier…I’ll go Markus Bailey, linebacker out of Purdue. We were both thinking early…within the first two days…when he was on the field, he was flying around the field making plays against the run, in coverage, he’s a kid who plays hard, great attitude, great approach…talent of a second or third-rounder.
Bailey seemed like a favorite of evaluators were it not for his medical red flags, which includes a pair of knee injuries bookending his collegiate career. But between the knee injuries, he put up 89 or more tackles in three different seasons and for his career totaled 14.5 sacks and six interceptions.
While a great value, the Bailey pick was still a surprise because the Bengals had already addressed linebacker twice in the previous rounds with Logan Wilson and Akeem Davis-Gaither.
Funnily enough, Bailey probably should’ve been off the board in the same range as those guys, making him an underrated presence for the defense going into his rookie season.
[vertical-gallery id=32069]