Snapping The First Round Curse Can Save the Bengals Defense
Credit: Albert Cesare/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK
Let’s start our day with a little bit of Cincinnati Bengals trivia for fans to ponder:
Who was the last first-round defensive player selected by the Cincinnati Bengals who went on to make the Pro Bowl at least once in his career?
Go on, take a minute.
Nope. Jessie Bates (who made his first Pro Bowl in Atlanta last season) was a second-round pick in 2018. Try again.
Carlos Dunlap and Geno Atkins both made the Pro Bowl from the 2010 Draft… but they were second and fourth-rounders, respectively. We’re at 14 years and counting now. One more guess.
Give up? The answer is Jonathan Joseph, selected by the Bengals in 2006… and by the time he made the Pro Bowl, he was a member of the Houston Texans, having signed there as a free agent in 2011. Who was the last first-round defensive player before Joseph that achieved that accolade? We’re going back to Justin Smith in 2001… who only did so once he moved on to the San Francisco 49ers.
As for the last Bengal drafted in the first round to make the Pro Bowl with the Bengals, that distinction goes back to Takeo Spikes, all the way back in the Clinton Administration (1998). How different is the world now? There were 3,880 Blockbuster locations in the U.S., which is 3,779 more than today.
Why do we bring this up? Because to improve its 31st-ranked defense in 2023, the team is going to have to get a significant level of out of 2022 and 2023 first-round picks Daxton (Dax) Hill and Myles Murphy. In doing so, the team can not only break its first-round defense pick curse, but it can return to its contending form in the process.
Comic book fans who are also sports nuts might be surprised to discover that Hill’s middle name is Jor-El, the name of the father of Clark Kent, a.k.a. Superman. Unfortunately for Hill, his 2023 season (his first as a starting safety) was far from heroic. The Bengals’ youth movement in their secondary was been blamed for some of the unit’s struggles last season, a situation which should be improved following Von Bell’s return after a year of gridiron purgatory with Carolina.
Also potentially helping the situation is Hill’s move to cornerback in 2024, a move which has already drawn praise from the team’s coaching staff and daily beat writers. With 2023 second-round pick D.J. Turner also struggling last year, the battle between him and Hill to face Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, Dak Prescott, and the like is one of the team’s more intriguing storylines in 2024.
While Hill had a large role in 2023, Eddie Murphy made more headlines last year than the Bengals’ first-round defensive end with whom he shares a last name. Myles Murphy played sparingly in his debut season in the NFL – and it wasn’t due to an injury. He has since admitted that he wasn’t in the best shape last year, telling long-time Bengals radio announcer Dan Hoard this spring he’s since learned the difference between “combine condition and football condition.”
With Cam Sample lost for the year to injury, Murphy will likely get the opportunity to show what he’s learned. However, based on the Bengals’ first two preseason games, he may have to hope that the team’s coaching staff is grading on a curve. Playing the opening few series against Offensive Rookie of the Year favorite Caleb Williams and the new-look Chicago Bears’ offense, Murphy got spun right round like he was Flo Rida. Darnell Wright, the Bears’ All-Rookie first-rounder from 2023, looked every bit the part against Murphy. Then again, since former Bears Scouting Director Greg Gabriel pegged him as a “future Pro Bowl-type player,” one might argue that the outcome of their head-to-head battle was to be expected, and we cut Murphy a bit of slack.
But if the Bengals don’t want to have their poor preseason performance set the tone for the 2024 season, they’ll need more from Hill and Murphy alike. They may not have to turn in Pro Bowl-caliber performances (though, that’d sure be nice), but they definitely need to show a lot of improvement for the Bengals’ defense to get back to the days when Sam Hubbard was rumbling into the end zone.
Whether or not this first-round duo earns their stripes this season remains to be seen. If they can’t step up their games, they risk joining the likes of Keith Rivers, Reinard Wilson, Dan “Big Daddy” Wilkinson, John Copeland, and the many Bengals who saw their first-round talent fizzle out in the jungle that is the NFL.
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