Locked On Bengals - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Bengals - Inside the Dexter Lawrence Trade: Bengals Assistant GM Opens Up About Defensive Overhaul

Starting point is 00:00:00 Bengals assistant general manager Mike Potts joins us to break down the Dexter Lawrence trade linebacker priority and much more about the Bengals off season. You are locked on Bengals, your daily Cincinnati Bengals podcast. Part of the Locked on podcast network, your team every day. What up Bengals fans and welcome to another episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast. He's James Rapine. I'm Jake Liscoe. We're your host of Lockdown Bengals, your daily Cincinnati Bengals podcast. and today we're joined for the first of two episodes with Mike Potts, the Bengals Assistant General Manager, formerly Director of College Scouting.

Starting point is 00:00:44 So obviously a little bit more involved with the draft side of things, at least historically. And now with that promotion to Assistant General Manager, potentially some more responsibilities for Mr. Potts. And well, James, we talked in today about Dexter Lawrence and how that trade came together, what the vision was for Lawrence, the linebacker question comes up. And heck, we even talk about the consensus topic that is all the rage right now.

Starting point is 00:01:10 It was a fun one to start with Mike Potts. And then tomorrow we'll get to all of the draft picks and get Pots's thoughts on each individual pick and some questions that we have from watching the tape. Yeah, really excited to talk to Mike and dive into linebacker, which we'll do later on today's show. Did the Bengals just completely punt on linebacker like some of you think? I'm going to ask him that. But first we got to start with sexy Dexie, the Bengals adding Dexter Lawrence. And that's where our conversation with Mike Potts begins.

Starting point is 00:01:43 We're joined today by Bengals Assistant General Manager Mike Potts. He's with us. He's been with us for the last few years after the draft to talk about what's transpired, how the Bengals approached things in the draft. And this year, draft week kicked off with Dexter Lawrence. And one of the biggest moves that I can remember, the Bengals, ever making. And so with that in mind, we need to start there, Mike, and the big addition of Dexter Lawrence. And talk a little bit about how that trade comes to pass. You have talked about

Starting point is 00:02:17 that you're exploring players all the time. You're exploring trades all the time. What made Dexter Lawrence the special kind of target that you guys wanted to pursue? Yeah, obviously a huge move. We think he's a special player, and it was a position that we felt we needed some increased impact on our defense. So it obviously has to work for both sides when we got word that he may be available, maybe even before it was known publicly. It was something that we definitely were interested in. And a lot of those things, as I've said previously, a lot of those things come up and they never get across the finish line. And we're glad that this one we were able to work through it and had an impact player like that. Mike, you get it done.

Starting point is 00:03:09 And you're right. Like there's so many tentacles. It's easy for me, especially. Our listeners would know, I'd say, oh, we'll go make this big deal or go sign this guy. But it's always more complicated than that. What's the feeling like when you realize it is done? The compensation's agreed to. The contract stuff is going to work out.

Starting point is 00:03:28 And he's flying to town the next day. that Saturday night when you realized that this was going to get done. Really aggressive move. So it was a great feeling. Obviously, you just added a great player that we feel like can really impact our organization. But we saw it coming for a while. It was a thorough process that we worked through.

Starting point is 00:03:53 It wasn't like something that just came out of nowhere and came together within 30 minutes or an hour or something like that. So we kind of, of anticipated it leading up to that moment and until he passes that final physical and we get the contract details worked out, there's no time to get too excited until it's completely finalized and we have everything finished. So at that point, we were very excited. Obviously we feel very strongly about Dexter to give up the compensation that we did and we

Starting point is 00:04:25 worked through a lot of different scenarios of whether that was the best move for us and then at the end of the day we had consensus from our ownership and our personal Nell staff, that that was the route that we wanted to go. What made this the year that the aggressive move really came together, that this level of aggression comes together and you do end up trading a top 10 asset for such a special player like Dexter Lawrence who impacts the game from Noseckel in a way that we don't really see nozs affect the game? We're involved in a lot of these conversations.

Starting point is 00:04:58 I just think, like I said before, I think you have to be selectively aggressive and this this time everything just aligned. I don't know if there's anything particular about this year. We do like a lot of the pieces that we have on the roster, and that's not to just say we were one piece away, and Dexter is the only piece that we needed to add to get us over the hump, because I think we're going to continue to work through that now, even after the draft. We like a lot of these guys that we added in the draft and even undrafted free agency as well. So it's a continual process that we're going to work on all the way up through the season, but we thought Dexter was a really big piece of that that could really improve our

Starting point is 00:05:31 roster. When when you're having those conversations and you reach consensus, how often does rare come up? How much of the the desire of having this this guy in the interior? You guys have had to deal with guys like obviously Aaron Donald and Super Bowl 56, Chris Jones multiple times and AFC championship games and there are plenty of others. Those experiences in how hard it is to find the defensive tackle spot? Is that what led to this giving up the 10th pick and finding consensus with a guy like Dexter? Yeah, we like to reserve the use of the word rare in our scouting process for the upper echelon, the top 1% of guys, you know, either whether it's in that free agency or that draft class or even historically all time. So, but I do think he falls in that

Starting point is 00:06:28 category and a lot of his attributes in terms of some of the rare qualities that he has in terms of size and in the power and stoutness that he plays with. So we thought he was a really unique guy and we didn't think a guy like that was available in this year's draft class or most draft classes. We just we just thought it was a unique opportunity to acquire that level of talent. When you look at the way Dexter Lawrence's usage and alignment has evolved over time in his NFL career and his most prominent productive years as a pass pressure coming from really being aligned more in the A gap.

Starting point is 00:07:06 How do you see that transition to Cincinnati and where you think his use is going to be best aligned with getting the most out of that kind of skill set for Dexter on Al Golden's defense? Yeah, I mean, he does, like you said, a lot of his best work aligned there in the A gap or over the nose as a true zero nose. over the center, I should say. But he does have alignment and versatility. He can attack a lined up out over the guard or a little bit wider towards the tackle as well.

Starting point is 00:07:37 But, you know, you'd have to ask Al in terms of his specific vision of how he wants to utilize him. But that goes along with some of the other guys that we've added on the defensive line as well, namely a guy like Jonathan Allen that has done some of his best work at that three technique out over the outside shoulder of the guard. So, you know, I think he gives us some versatility, but I think for sure he's a true nose tackle, first and foremost, who can give us some versatility if Al wants to keep the offenses guessing and, you know, give them different looks and ways to attack. Workplace chaos, deadline stacking up, inbox overflowing, and the one position you have to fill is still sitting open. When pressure's on, you need the right hire, and this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Indeed, sponsored jobs helps you reach the people who actually fit what you're looking for, that position that you need to fill with the right experience, the right skill set, the right tools,

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Starting point is 00:09:34 The thing that maybe most excites me is the fit. What it does, you mentioned Jonathan Allen, what it does for Allen, what it does for Mafé, Murphy, Shamar Stewart is going to see a bunch of one-on-ones now. You could keep BJ Hill fresh. He was probably as underrated of a player last year with his productivity. And so now he's going to see a bunch of one-on-ones and not have to deal with the double teams, at least as many as he dealt with. Like I love the fit.

Starting point is 00:10:04 I think it just kind of puts not a bow. I get it. You guys are never done. But it just, it's a plug-in dominant guy. And everybody that you guys have added or continued to keep around fits alongside him. And I think that's a really unique. situation as you're trying to rebuild this defense, we're able to get a guy like that and everything that you added prior fits seamlessly. At least that's the goal, but I think on paper,

Starting point is 00:10:31 it certainly does feel that way. Yeah, we love the fit as well. I agree with you. I think it's going to make it a lot easier for the players around him to do their jobs, whether that's on the defensive line, whether that's the linebackers, the safeties or the corners playing behind him. He's going to make a lot of other guys' jobs easier. And overall, we think as a collective, it's going to make us a better defense. When you think about the draft process and the lead into the trade, you had just completed some top 30 visits or 30 visits or whatever you guys call them in the industry these days with a number of guys that would have only been available to you at 10.

Starting point is 00:11:09 Is there any sort of, or I guess, it's obviously a great thing that you get the trade done. But what is that feeling like where you spend all the time? working on these visits, bringing guys in, and then you suddenly don't have the asset. It's never work that's lost by any means, because we'll use that scouting information in the future, whether these guys become available for a trade at some point in the future, similar to this Dexter situation, or if they are free agents at some point, if they're cut and they're on the street, we're always going to have that information in our system, and it's valuable in terms of the background information, our experiences with them in person through the interview process.

Starting point is 00:11:51 And, you know, it allowed us to see what the landscape was and what may have been there. If we would have stayed at pick 10 or if we would have traded around from that pick 10 spot in either direction. So it's it's never a situation where the work is, you know, not useful. It's just we, some of those guys that were candidates at pick 10, you know, obviously aren't going to be Bengals right away. but that's not to say that they couldn't be in the future at some point. How valuable was that that 2019? You were obviously with the team then in a very similar role that you are now, but that 2019 scouting report on Dexter, the work you did on him.

Starting point is 00:12:30 You had Gino at the time, like things were a lot different than way back then, but I'm sure you referred to it at some point during this process. Yeah, case and point, exactly, in terms of what I'm saying. We're, you know, doing the work on a guy like Dexter Lawrence that year that we didn't end up selecting that year. We still refer to that. We have all of that documented in our system, can go back and see what we thought of him

Starting point is 00:12:53 in our interactions throughout the scouting process that season in 2019. Go back, see what the sources at Clemson were saying about him, what our observations were from practice or from seeing him at a live game or evaluating his tape, and all of that is a piece of the puzzle that we put together in terms of the profile that we have on these guys once they turn pros.

Starting point is 00:13:15 Did you think he would be this? Like back then, obviously you took Jonah and you needed a tackle. Like I remember, and I'm not questioning the pick that year. I just mean, did you think he would be a dominant nose like he's been? We did, yeah. We had really high grades on him coming out, and that's not to say that we're always going to be stubborn and stick to what our college grade is.

Starting point is 00:13:35 We had a very, very high regard for him that year coming out in the draft, but you do have to be open-minded as well. Sometimes there's guys that we're. low on or we're high on. And then like I said, you can't be stubborn once they get into the pros if they end up developing or being disappointing. And, you know, maybe are lesser of a player that compared to what we saw coming out. So it can go both ways. But I think he's been a high level player since college. And, you know, our opinion has always been very high of Dexter. You always have the post-hyped sleepers. And at some point, the post-type sleeper, there's

Starting point is 00:14:11 enough tape on them in the NFL where you kind of know what they are at this level and it's not always going to be like it was like you said with the original college scouting report. To kind of wrap up the conversation around Dexter Lawrence, the overhaul of the defensive line and the major additions there including Jonathan Allen that we talked about, Boyle-Mafé, Cassius Howell, if back in, you know, March, we had told you that that was going to be the level of overhaul or addition to the defensive line. What would you have told us then if we had said, yeah, this is what it's going to look like in a couple of months.

Starting point is 00:14:49 Would you have been like, yeah, that's a vision or would you have been maybe a little bit more pleased or excited or surprised with the amount you guys were able to get done there? I think I would have been pleased with it. It was definitely something that we wanted to attack. But again, you don't know that a guy like Dexter Lawrence is going, we're going to be able to complete a trade. It takes the other side to move him. It takes the Minnesota Vikings to cut a guy like Jonathan Allen.

Starting point is 00:15:15 So like I've said previously, we go through all these scenarios, all these simulations. It's impossible to predict and lay out that exact plan that we ended up with because there's other factors that are outside of our control in terms of those players becoming available to us. So, you know, if you would have told me that in advance going in, let's say back in February, I would have been very. very, very happy with it. And to this day, I am very happy with where our defensive line sits right now because it's something that we wanted to really improve the talent in that defensive line room and the defense overall. Mike, you obviously continued the defensive line theme on Friday night in the second round. You're able to get Cassius Howl, a guy who's certainly going to bring juice is the word. I think I've used more over the past week or so than I've ever

Starting point is 00:16:04 used in my life. He's going to help that pass rush. He's going to help that defensive line. room, how many scenarios or how realistic did you think it was when you're playing out all these pre-draft scenarios that a pass rusher like that was going to fall to you at 41? We thought it was really unlikely to be honest. I don't know. There's a number of reasons you can speculate on why he was available to us there in the second round. I do know there was a lot of teams around the league, rightfully so, that liked him a lot.

Starting point is 00:16:35 So just a lot of different factors and analysis that. that you can look at. And every angle we looked at it from, we figured it was pretty unlikely that he would be available at Pick 41. And we felt very fortunate that he was there. It was an easy selection for us once he was on the board. There was an article about the overhaul and the draft room with the new screens and the new setup you have there with the technology that's come along. You obviously had some changes in the scouting department as well with a couple of new voices in the room, Tray Labounti and his role with the analytics and tech side of things. I'm not asking you to peel back the curtain all the way here and tell me all your secrets

Starting point is 00:17:19 or anything like that, you know, but what was the biggest impact or difference with those guys coming along and fitting in so well this year and integrating into the process? Yeah, those guys did a great job. I mentioned them before Sam Francis, Trey LaBounty, Tyler Gross, really working well together. they kind of all have their area of expertise, but they come together really at the end of the day to make our process more efficient. We've always kind of collected the information that we have, but just a better way maybe of displaying it in our system, making everything readily available. So you don't have to click around five times to get all that information on a player's profile, and it's just all readily available right there in front of you, whether you're hovering over something or it's just displayed right there at the top of their player card. So that was a huge thing on top of just all of the reports and analysis that they did throughout the year and they can do at a moment's notice or just give them 25, 30 minutes and they can come back to you with a really detailed report, breaking down whatever our question that may have been that we wanted to analyze.

Starting point is 00:18:25 And then in the draft room as well, we added multiple screens this year, just breaking down team needs and what could be coming up in different scenarios, different trade scenarios. that they had again just readily available to us we didn't have to click and go open up an email in our in our computer or bring it up on a different screen we just had multiple screens up there throughout the draft that you know it's just a proper use of taking advantage of their brain power and their expertise and the technology that we have at our fingertips so um again if i could boil it down it just was a much more efficient process and um those guys deserve a lot of credit I'm not sure if you've seen the debates around consensus boards and the value of consensus boards is happening in the NFL social media space right now. But is that part of your process?

Starting point is 00:19:17 As part of your mock drafts in preparing for the real thing? Is that on any of those screens? Are you paying attention to all the different ideas that are out there in the world and people keeping track of all those ideas and kind of put them all together? It is part of our process. We have people that work on that and are very thorough in terms of what's out there publicly. We try to do as much homework as we can from as many outside sources as we can in terms of where these players are portrayed or projected to go. At the end of the day, we can take that information and maybe choose to not take a –

Starting point is 00:19:59 there's always scenarios and we have groupings of players. hey, we really like to come away with two of these players in this grouping. Which one should we take first? Which one should we take second? And then also, you may see a guy that's publicly projected to go late or a guy that's publicly projected to go earlier than where we have them. A lot of times we have maybe more information than what those mock drafts may say. And we know why those guys are projected to go later, whether, you know, there's a medical

Starting point is 00:20:27 issue or whatever the case may be or maybe just the the league is not quite as high on a guy that has a little bit too much buzz in our opinion. So at the end of the day, our consensus is always going to be the most important, but we do factor that in and we do meet on that and spend a lot of time on that just to make sure that we aren't overdrafting somebody or underdrafting somebody, so to speak, and getting the proper value. And then also it's a form of checks and balances. Hey, maybe we are too low on this guy. Maybe we should get another evaluation on this guy. Maybe we're too high on this guy. Let's get another look and make sure

Starting point is 00:21:01 we're good. And then once we feel good about the consensus and we're all in the same range in terms of our personnel guys, our coaches, evaluating these players, then we put a final determination of where they're going to be on our final draft board. Mike, there's going to be

Starting point is 00:21:17 plenty of people that look at it and say they've addressed the defensive front. They address safety with Brian Cook. They haven't addressed linebacker. They in free agency, they didn't in the draft. Clearly they didn't want to do that. How true would that be, that narrative be that idea that you guys weren't necessarily interested in a linebacker this offseason? And is that still an area that maybe you'd be focused on ahead of training camp? Yeah, I wouldn't say that's true at all, that we didn't want to address linebacker. We wanted to

Starting point is 00:21:46 address every position, but we also didn't want to overdraft anybody and force the need. And we wanted to get proper value with our picks in the draft, and we wanted to get proper value back in free agency as well. So, you know, I think you can make mistakes when you force needs like that. I think at the same time, you can look at it. We were very strong on the defensive line going into the draft, and we still drafted two defensive linemen. Now we're extremely strong and that much stronger, in my opinion, on the D-line. But, you know, if for any linebacker or any other position that we addressed that we didn't address, that takes away from one of the guys that we really liked that we ended up selecting. So it never ends up perfect in terms of checking all the boxes in the

Starting point is 00:22:30 draft. And I do think if you check all the boxes for need, then you probably didn't get proper value in the draft unless you were just extremely lucky with the way the board fell to you. So that's the way it played out. And, you know, whether it's lineback or any other position, there's still avenues to address those, whether it's trades, whether it's guys that are still out there as free agents. Obviously, the waiver wire, the cut down towards the end of the end of preseason is something that we've been relatively active on and, you know, do our homework there as well. So there are still avenues. And like I said, whether it's linebacker or any other position, we're going to still continue to look to upgrade. Really, really good

Starting point is 00:23:08 stuff there from Mike Potts. That's just part one, part two coming your way tomorrow, where we'll dive into all of the draft picks. But Jake, just got to point out, the Bengals clearly in on linebacker. idea that they went into the offseason and said, no, we're okay. Everything's good. Nothing to see here. We're going to address everything on defense except linebacker. That's not the case. Maybe we'll dive into more of that next week. But Mike clearly making it as Crystal, I think as he can, the Bengals were absolutely open to adding it linebacker if the right opportunity would have happened. It hasn't happened yet. Maybe it will, but certainly something worth noting. Yeah, there's a clear focus on the defensive side of the ball this year, getting better at every level.

Starting point is 00:23:53 And that was the one level they didn't address. I think that is more a product of coincidence and the way that it played out than a concerted effort to say, we're going to keep rolling with what we have there. They obviously dedicated resources elsewhere, but there were a number of times and a number of opportunities that just didn't quite pan out or weren't the right fit. And I think that is between what Mike told us, what Steve Residivis told us during the draft, what Duke Tobin told us after the draft, what Al Golden told us during the Combine,

Starting point is 00:24:23 all these different touch points throughout the offseason. I think that that is pretty clear to both of us at this point. Tomorrow's show involves Mike Potts talking about every single player of the Bengals draft. We have film questions about each player throughout the draft, some really fun insights about each draft pick, how they see the fit for these guys. So plenty more with Mike Potts coming your way tomorrow about the Bengals draft.

Starting point is 00:24:48 Until then, thanks for listening to this episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast, through day and have a good one.

Locked On Bengals - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Bengals - Inside the Dexter Lawrence Trade: Bengals Assistant GM Opens Up About Defensive Overhaul

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