When it comes to first-round picks, the Cincinnati Bengals just can’t win.
Jonah Williams is the latest casualty in this long line of problems for the Bengals. Fans were gun shy as soon as the team mentioned Williams was “dinged” in OTAs and the team wouldn’t let him answer questions about it.
Fast forward to Tuesday, the Bengals announced Williams would likely miss his rookie season after undergoing surgery to repair a torn labrum.
For those keeping track, the Bengals keep having serious misfortunate with their top picks. To review:
- Cedric Ogbuehi, 2015: Appeared in just five games after rehabbing
- William Jackson, 2016: Torn pec in camp, misses season
- John Ross, 2017: Graduation and injuries limited him to three games, 17 snaps
- Billy Price, 2018: Combine pec injury, early-season injury limited him to 10 games
- One can take this back even farther too. Darqueze Dennard (2014) and Dre Kirkpatrick (2012) didn’t see many snaps as rookies.
The range of longstanding results is all over the place, too. Ogbuehi busted his way out of Cincinnati, whereas Jackson is one of the rising corners in the NFL. The jury is still out on Ross and Price, and while the latter had the biggest rookie season of all, he also had massive struggles and air-mailed the snap that ended Andy Dalton’s season.
Now, the best case is Williams makes a full recovery and in an offseason’s time re-assumes the role as a starting left tackle. But around that same timeframe, Bengals fans can be forgiven for feeling concern about their 2020 first-round pick.
