John Sheeran describes how Notre Dame Fighting Irish safety Xavier Watts could make or break the Cincinnati Bengals's 2025 NFL Draft class.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00There is one player in the NFL Draft who can impact how the Bengals navigate throughout the
00:04entire weekend, and in this video, I'll explain the conflict Cincinnati would have to tackle
00:08before drafting him. Hi again, Bengals fans. John Sheeran of A to Z Sports Cincinnati here,
00:16and just like a lot of you, my mind is full of the various iterations of how this NFL Draft can
00:20unfold for the Bengals. And it all starts with the first-round pick, obviously, but I think when
00:24that time comes, we'll have a pretty good idea about who the Bengals are targeting, and we can
00:28narrow down that candidate list to maybe like five or six players. With this team specifically,
00:33drafts are made or broken with how day two unfolds. And it's obviously impossible to predict which
00:38players are going to be there for the Bengals to draft in both the second and third round, but
00:42a lot of their questionable decisions over the past handful of years, specifically in the Zach Taylor
00:46era, they've come in those two rounds. Honestly, you can go year by year from 2019 to now, looking
00:52through all those draft classes, focusing on the second and third round picks, and you can determine
00:56if that draft class was worthwhile at all. You're talking about Drew Sample as a second-round pick
01:00in 2019. T. Higgins and Logan Wilson obviously were bangers in 2020 in both the second and third
01:06round, respectively. In 2021, you had Jackson Carman, a gigantic whiff in the second round,
01:11followed by Joseph Asai, which is, you know, kind of up in the air considering he's still here.
01:152022 rolls around, and second-round pick Cam Taylor-Britt has been an absolute rollercoaster
01:18for the team, while third-round pick Zach Carter was a complete bust. 2023, I think, was a notably
01:23better class, and I had a second-round pick in DJ Turner, and a third-round pick in Jordan Battle,
01:26who I think have both been good when they have played. And then 2024 is kind of a mystery,
01:30but it doesn't look too good right now with your two third-round picks being Jermaine Burden and
01:34McKinley Jackson, and Chris Jenkins is a decent second-rounder. There is a strong and healthy
01:38amount of variance there, with really only Higgins and Wilson being the truly good picks, with most of
01:43them being kind of underwhelming. And when looking at this year's draft, just like many of those
01:47that just went over, I think the second round is, once again, going to be a very critical point
01:51that can determine how the rest of the draft goes. And the availability of one player specifically,
01:56I think, can change the entire dynamic of how this draft goes for the Bengals. And that is Notre Dame
02:00safety, Xavier Watts. Because I'm going to keep it real with you guys. If the Bengals pass on a safety
02:05in the first round, they don't draft a Malachi Starks or a Nicky Manwari in the first round,
02:09right? They address either defensive tackle, defensive end, guard, wherever the case may be,
02:13right? And Xavier Watts is staring Al Golden in the face in the second round, and he has the chance
02:19to take him. I can't imagine the type of strong case he's going to make to the rest of the war
02:24room to make that pick happen. Because I know this for a fact, even when Geno Stone is playing at his
02:29best, tackling is not necessarily his strong suit. It is definitely well below what Al Golden wants
02:34out of his safeties. And if he sees the guy who's ran his defense for the last two years and has been
02:39a captain under his leadership, he's just there to be drafted in the second round to replace Geno Stone,
02:45I just can't see Golden sitting on his hands and just allowing that not to happen. And I bring up
02:50the second round for Watts, because it really does seem like that's the highest he could probably go
02:54in this draft. There are reports that he's even graded as low as a fourth rounder to some teams.
02:59So his variance in terms of draft position is all over the place. But I think, again, the second round
03:03is where the Bengals would have to take him. But that's where potential conflict can come into play,
03:06because in all likelihood, I'm not expecting the Bengals to draft an offensive lineman with their first
03:11round pick. I think it's interesting that they met with Josh Simmons, who could theoretically move inside the
03:15guard and then outside the tackle in a couple of years time. But outside of that, I think for the
03:19most part, they're looking at day two as to whether they're going to address the offensive line. So when
03:23the Bengals are on the clock in the second round, and it's down to either Watts or an offensive lineman
03:27with that pick, I think the majority of voices, specifically the most important voices, are going
03:31to be banging the table for the offensive lineman. But Golden himself might be the most important
03:35addition the Bengals made this entire offseason. His ability to turn this defense around and get it
03:41competitive again, it may determine whether or not the Bengals make the playoffs. And if he
03:44believes with his entire heart that he needs his safety from Notre Dame to make this whole thing
03:50work, that may be a concession that they allow to happen. And the ripple effect of that pick
03:54would be massive. Obviously, Stone's days in Cincinnati would be numbered, but more importantly,
03:59they would enter the third round and beyond without having addressed the offensive line.
04:03And judging by how the Bengals have drafted in recent years, when they have a need that hasn't been
04:06addressed in the first two rounds, that very much opens the door for a massive reach to be taken
04:11in rounds three or four. The Bengals do need to address the offensive line, but wasting resources
04:16at the position for a pick that's not worth it, that solves no problems. And of course, it's not
04:20a guarantee that that hypothetical pick would be a reach. He could be a very good player worth a third
04:25or fourth round pick. He could be ready to start immediately. But again, I would be a fool to just
04:29ignore recent history here. So it's fitting that you have to pronounce the X in Xavier Watts' name,
04:34because I really do think he could be the X factor for this entire draft class for the Bengals.
04:38But what do you guys think? Would you want the Bengals to draft Xavier Watts in the second round
04:42if it meant that you had to wait until the third or fourth round to draft an offensive lineman?
04:46Let me know in the comments below.