Bengals 21st Century Draft Class Tournament: Round One - #6 (2012) vs #11 (2015)

In the spirit of March Madness, we've initiated our own tournament, a 21st Century Bengals Draft Class Tournament.

We've taken the past 16 Bengals draft classes and seeded them one through 16. The readers of Cincy Jungle will vote for the winner of each matchup, with one draft class advancing and one being eliminated. The tournament will continue until the readers of Cincy Jungle have crowned a winner of the best Bengals draft class of the 21st century. Get the bracket and all the details here!

In a matchup of two newer draft classes, it’s difficult at this point in their careers to gauge exactly how good either class is. But we have to make our best guess of the 2015 class who spent much of the past season season sitting on the bench watching the 2012 class on the field.

2012 Draft Class (#6)

Thanks to a fortuitous trade with the Oakland Raiders, the Bengals had a pair of mid-first round picks in 2012. The first of these was Dre Kirkpatrick, who seemed to spend forever on the bench, starting only 20 games in his four year career to date. But after a few years of productive when given opportunities, he disappointed in his first season as a starter. 2016 should be a more important season for the young cornerback.

The second of the first round picks caused much grief on draft day for Bengals’ fans, who by and large wanted the Bengals to select offensive guard David DeCastro. Instead, the Bengals traded down, allowing the Steelers to draft DeCastro, while opting for another offensive guard, Kevin Zeitler. Zeitler has been a fixture at right guard for the Bengals and the outlook seems good for his future with the Bengals.

While Still and Thompson may have never emerged as more than deep backups, and a great human interest story, the player sandwiched between them has been somewhat productive. While nothing more than a third receiver, Sanu does have an impressive 100 percent completion percentage as a quarterback with a pair of touchdowns and no interceptions. Now, he's moved on to the Falcons on a five-years deal in Atlanta.

Marvin Jones and George Iloka in round 5 represent a pair of late round steals. Both have emerged as great players and both just received huge new deals. Unfortunately, Jones' new deal takes him away to Detroit where he'll be taking over Calvin Johnson's role.

While this group lacks a signature player who could be considered "elite" at this point in their careers, they represent a good collection of players not dependent on any one guy to carry them through the tournament. Zeitler, Kirkpatrick, Jones and Iloka are a good group of starters who could advance further in the tournament than their #6 seed suggests.

2015 Draft Class (#11)

In all fairness, it’s just too early to give a fair seed to this group. They enter the tournament dependent on potential more than what they’ve done on the field.

Ogbuehi and Fisher will hopefully become long tenured, productive NFL starters, and if given a chance Dawson could become a difference-maker in the Bengals’ linebacking corps.

Their success in this tournament rides almost entirely on the projectability that the voters see in them. So the question will be how does their projected value compare with the more well-known group drafted in 2012.