Unfortunately, the Cincinnati Bengals have resorted to arbitrary, self-imposed, and constraining metrics to evaluate early-round prospects in recent NFL Drafts.
Some of those metrics, such as height, arm length, and weight, have them missing out on the most obvious of prospects who could have helped them win the Super Bowl, if only they had one more quality offensive lineman.
More recently, the team has gone off the beaten path, relying more on advanced stats to identify whom they should select in the draft. And we should expect them to do the same in the 2026 draft.
However, the Bengals should ultimately adopt the Curt Cignetti method of “production over potential,” which helped lead the Indiana Hoosiers to the most unlikely College Football National Championship ever.
Curt Cignetti learned from his mistakes, while the Bengals have not
When talking about the mistakes he made in his evaluations, Coach Cignetti brings up an issue that has stuck in Bengals fans’ craw recently.
Cignetti told Adam Berenman on his Next Up podcast, “I’m into production over potential. I learned that a long time ago. I made a lot of mistakes young, as a recruiting coordinator, way back. I like to see it on film.”
Seeing it on film rather than just drafting potential is something fans would have loved to see lately from their favorite team. However, what Bengals fans have seen is the team they root for drafting traits with very little, and perhaps even less than that, production.
There are 525 qualified defenders in the PFF database through 9 weeks.
— Gridiron Grading (@GridironGrading) November 3, 2025
Bengals Top 50 picks Demetrius Knight Jr. and Shemar Stewart are graded 523rd and 524th as run defenders.
Relying on rookies is risky and relying on rookies with minimal college production is even riskier.
Cignetti’s philosophy has worked out well for him. He has an .885 winning percentage over four years. He took Indiana to the College Football Playoff after earning an 11-2 record last year. This season, the Hoosiers went 16-0 en route to their championship.
Why Bengals should have chosen production over potential
The most recent example of the Bengals front office valuing an unseen potential over a good football player was selecting edge rusher Shemar Stewart in the first round over what proved to be obviously better options who could have contributed immediately to the league’s worst defense.
Even defensive players drafted on Day 3 were, and continue to be, more impactful to their team’s success this season than Cincinnati’s first-round selection from last year’s selection process.
At a time when the mindset and happiness, or lack thereof, of Joe Burrow is on the frontal lobes of those who cover the NFL, any talent the front office adds to the team must pay dividends expeditiously.
The 2026 offseason, specifically in the draft, is not the moment to add “projects” to a 53-man roster in need of an instantaneous turnaround.
Bengals should steal Cignetti’s blueprint
The way Coach Cignetti talks about evaluating and the results his process yields would have made him a top choice among NFL teams looking for a head coach in this draft cycle. Especially for the Bengals if they had moved from Zac Taylor.
Hopefully, that will not be a conversation at the end of next season as the Bengals seek to return to the glory days of 2021.
However, to get back to the playoffs and ultimately the Super Bowl, the Bengals should adopt more of a Cignetti approach to the offseason rather than the one that leads to decisions such as taking an open-book test that lands on an edge rusher with 4.5 sacks and 11 tackles for loss in the entirety of his collegiate career in the first round as the answer for a defense that needed an instant positive impact.