2 weeks Ago
CINCINNATI – The weakest position on the roster and the thinnest position in the draft class collided Friday night when the Cincinnati Bengals selected South Carolina linebacker Demetrius Knight Jr. in the second round. Knight always felt like a fit for the Bengals – but in the third round, as we mocked last week .
Selecting Knight at No. 49 seemed premature, but as far as Cincinnati head coach Zac Taylor and defensive coordinator Al Golden were concerned, it was an excruciating wait. “Al and I were just talking; it felt a lot like waiting for Logan (Wilson) a couple of years ago, just letting all of those picks tick off," Taylor said, referencing their third-round selection of their current defensive captain in the 2020 draft.
“I was waiting for this for 17 picks, waiting for Demetrius,” Golden said. “It was stressful. It could have went a number of positions.
You guys know all the positions we're looking at. It could've gone one way or another with another position. “But in terms of that position, that was the guy when we woke up this morning,” Golden added.
“And I'm glad he's here.” Golden and Taylor spent a lot of time talking about everything they like about Knight, from his length, his versatility, his physicality against the run to his character and leadership abilities as he was able to transfer to South Carolina ahead of the 2024 season and instantly be named a team captain and be voted the MVP of what Golden called one of the best defenses in the SEC. Taylor promised to never show emotion in the war room again after his table-pounding exuberance following the pick of Jermaine Burton last year.
But he couldn’t help himself after his phone call to Knight, although he appeared to catch himself and throttle down before going full tilt. As much as the Bengals like Knight, and there is a lot there to like, this pick said as much about other areas of the roster as it did about the makeup and ability of the 25-year-old linebacker. They didn’t view safety and guard with the urgency that many thought they might.
Passing on guard Tate Ratledge, who was Amarius Mims’ teammate at Georgia and seemingly an obvious player to add to the second thinnest position on the roster, was a bit surprising. But the Bengals landed another Georgia guard in the third round with the selection of Dylan Fairchild. It also was surprising to see the team pass not once, but twice on Notre Dame Xavier Watts, who obviously has a close connection with the Golden after playing for him for three seasons.
But Watts lasted until late in the third round when Atlanta took him with the No. 96 pick. The Bengals had contingencies at both of those positions, but they feared the gap in talent from Knight to the next linebacker on their board.
And, as it turned out, the league agreed. After the Bengals took Knight at 49, only one linebacker was drafted in the final 53 picks of the night, with Oklahoma State’s Nick Martin going to the 49ers at No. 75.
But it wasn't just the scarcity of linebackers that make the pick look solid. It's how much Golden values the role Knight can play in the defense he is building. Golden raved about Knight’s ability to play off the ball and on the ball, giving him a second consecutive wildcard to pair with Stewart.
“I think it’s important because you can get hamstrung and very predictable if you have to sub every time you want to go to a different look,” he said. “And it was important to us to be able to go in and out of looks with the same personnel on the field, and to do that you have to have two very distinct chess pieces, and we feel like we’ve accomplished both of those. And to be quite honest, there aren’t many of them.
“There aren’t many defensive ends that can kick in and play inside, and be rugged enough like Sam (Hubbard) used to be at 265 to 270, and there’s not a lot of these guys that can go on the line, and battle for you, and do some of those things. We feel like we got a combo linebacker in Demetrius. We feel like we got a clean character kid.
He’s healthy and hasn’t been playing linebacker all too long. So from that standpoint, although he’s 25, he is ascending. I feel like we got him at the right spot in his career, and I’m not concerned at all about the age.
What we have is a guy who’s got his priorities right, and he’s going to be ready to come in and fight for a job.”.
