Rob Rang selected Tennessee Volunteers cornerback Jermod McCoy<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cLike with the Commanders, the injury to star quarterback Joe Burrow played an undeniable role in the Bengals\u2019 disappointing 2025 season, but a leaky secondary deserves some blame as well,\u201d he wrote. \u201cDuke Tobin has historically shown a willingness to gamble on draft day, and he may be more willing than most to overlook the fact that McCoy missed the entire 2025 season with a torn ACL. When healthy, McCoy has shown true man-to-man cover skills, demonstrating not only elite change of direction and acceleration but ball-hawking instincts and hands.\u201d<\/p>\n
On paper, McCoy would check all the boxes. The Bengals need help in the secondary. Cam Taylor-Britt has regressed, and Dax Hill is playing on his fifth-year option, and DJ Turner is in a contract year as well. However, it would be nice to use a first-round pick on someone who doesn\u2019t have any health flags, can contribute on Day 1, and has a productive college career.<\/p>\n
Tobin has a history of selecting players who either can\u2019t get on the field right away, like Hill and Myles Murphy, both of whom spent a long time as rotational players before they got consistent playing time. He\u2019s also selected guys who were selected based on physical attributes that were regarded with more weight than what they produced in college, like Shemar Stewart, last year\u2019s first-round edge rusher who racked up four total sacks while at Texas A&M.<\/p>\n
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While McCoy could be healthy and could be a productive corner at the NFL level, it\u2019s time for the Bengals to use their top-10 pick on someone they KNOW (as much as they can about a prospect) can step in right away and make a difference on the defense. Someone like Miami\u2019s Rueben Bain, Texas Tech\u2019s David Bailey, or Ohio State\u2019s Caleb Downs.<\/p>\n
How would you feel if the Bengals used their first-round pick on McCoy? Sound off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cincinnati Bengals missed the playoffs again, and once again, one of the main culprits was a poorly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,5360,133465,63435,218018,629,5140,123032,593,5376,85,27731],"class_list":{"0":"post-412317","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-bengals","11":"tag-caleb-downs","12":"tag-dj-turner","13":"tag-duke-tobin","14":"tag-joe-burrow","15":"tag-miami","16":"tag-myles-murphy","17":"tag-nfl","18":"tag-shemar-stewart","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-zac-taylor"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}