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Welcome, Cedric.
It's been a while. We expected the delay. But we're glad you're ready now.
Bengals offensive tackle, and Cincinnati's 2015 first-round pick, Cedric Ogbuehi was cleared to practice on Tuesday.
The reviews were positive from Bengals offensive line coach Paul Alexander, writes Jay Morrison with the Dayton Daily News:
"He certainly showed lots of ability," Alexander said. "He had some ‘wow' moments."
Asked for an example of a wow moment, Alexander offered this analogy:
"When people go to the horse races and all of a sudden they see one horse pull away and they go ‘wow,' I think that's what football coaches mean when they say wow," he said. "They see an acceleration which is different than the rest. The guy's loaded with football talent," Alexander added. "Not just athletic ability, but football talent, which is athletic ability and football skill. He's loaded with that."
However, because we're the most selfless squad during Earth's history of internet websites, here's a cliff notes version of Ogbuehi's story (aka, Hurley explaining four seasons of Lost over the span of 88 seconds).
During Ogbuehi's time on Texas A&M's football team he suffered an ACL tear during the Liberty Bowl on Dec. 29, 2014. Head coach Marvin Lewis and (not really a GM but he mostly does GM stuff) Duke Tobin failed to weather Paul Alexander's obsession for Ogbuehi and selected him in the first round of the 2015 NFL draft, despite awareness regarding Ogbuehi's rehabilitation timeframe. When training camp started, Ogbuehi, placed on the team's Non-Football Injury list (it's like PUP but since the injury occurred before he joined the Bengals, it's defined as NFI for potential monetary reasons) worked tirelessly with Director of Rehabilitation (trainer) Nick Cosgray on the side field. On Tuesday, he was officially cleared for practice.
Ogbuehi remains on the team's NFI list, as the team has 21 days from his initial practice to make a decision -- activate him to the 53-man roster, keep him on NFI (there's actually no reason to make a roster move placing him on IR at this point) or release him (which won't happen).