Flashback: Mel Kiper Jr.'s Grade For The 2007 Cincinnati Bengals Draft Was Generous

Mel Kiper Jr's grades after the NFL Draft are taken slightly at face value; mostly because you heard so much of him, you might as well receive his final opinion of what your favorite team did. Sometimes he's off. Sometimes he's dead on. Let's reexamine Mel's grades and why he gave the Bengals a "C+" in the 2007 NFL Draft.

Picking Michigan CB Leon Hall without having to trade up to get him turned out to be very good value for the Bengals. Running back Kenny Irons could have been a first-round pick but couldn't stay healthy his senior season at Auburn. Safety Marvin White was not a bad fourth-round pick; Jeff Rowe was a system quarterback at Nevada, and I didn't like this pick because there were better quarterbacks still on the board; Matt Toeaina is a good fit for Cincy's defensive line because he can play defensive end or tackle. Hall was a very good pick, but the Bengals did not do much else to improve on defense.

Four years later and you can only conclude: A C+ was generous. Kenny Irons, Jeff Rowe and Matt Toeaina never played a regular season game for the Bengals. Marvin White played only two seasons before being released and the oft-injured Dan Santucci played two regular season games. White did return when the Bengals placed so many players on Injured Reserve that it was comparable to half the population of Loveland.

The seven players drafted that year combined to play 144 games for the Cincinnati Bengals with Hall signed through 2011 and Chinedum Ndukwe entering free agency.

A C+ was probably the most appropriate grade at the time. Four years later, the grade for the 2007 Bengals class makes F students feel accomplished.