Diante Lee

I mean, I cannot, I cannot list the amount of times I've watched a Bengals game and a coverage is blown because

Because they're just playing a guy that they shouldn't be playing in a certain spot, and he's just got no shot.

Or they miss an adjustment to the coverage based off the formation.

Or even worse, the coverage is good, the ball gets checked down, and then what should be a six-yard gain turns into 16 because somebody out in the flat misses a tackle.

Somebody in that middle of field area misses a tackle.

or allows a lot of yards after the catch because they take a poor angle, you're not going to see that be a problem for Caleb Downs, right?

And I think that wisely, as people have watched him and evaluated his film over the last year, I do think that people are right to say, all right, this is not some...

Earl Thomas, not some Eric Berry coming out of Tennessee, put him in the middle of the field, and he's just going to be able to range and go take the ball away from anybody.

He might not be that at his best, but if you want to talk about slot versus safety flexibility, a guy who can be a good blitzer but can help match up against tight ends or lesser slot receivers, he can certainly be that.

He's a great tackler.

He's a great communicator.

And if you're looking for your version of Nicky Manwari, your version of Cooper Dijon, your version of those, you know, difference-making slot defenders that can give you a little bit more in different spots as well, that's certainly Caleb Downs.

Like, there's almost no way that Cincinnati in three years is like, man, we could have done something else with our number 10 pick and we would have been much happier than we are right now being stuck with Caleb Downs.

I just don't see him failing in this scenario or really any scenario in the league.

I'm not a spreadsheet guy.

I should maybe adopt the spreadsheet just for my own accounting, right?

Like my problem is, and maybe this is just like the eternal doom scrolling that I feel like millennials my age all kind of suffer from because I've got...

10 tabs open from every major national publication and some of the specific beats, you know, that I'm really fascinated by.

And I've just got the ticker up, you know, I've got the, I've got the little timeline thing.

So every bullet point that comes by like, okay, let me scroll back to the top to see what the newest thing is.