NFL Draft 2012: Cincinnati Bengals Deserve Praise for Draft Day Dealings

The move down from No. 3 to No. 4 by the Minnesota Vikings has gotten a lot of good press. After all, GM Rick Spielman added a fourth, fifth, and seventh round pick and still got the high floor offensive lineman he was targeting at the third pick.

It looks like Cincinnati Bengals owner Mike Brown deserves similar praise for his move down from No. 21 to No. 27 and subsequent selection of former Wisconsin OG Kevin Zeitler. It should be lauded just as much, if not more, because the Bengals were able to recoup a third-round pick and still get their target.

The evidence comes from Bengals.com (the team's official site) writer Geoff Hobson. He says in his "Two Minute Drill":

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"It was their best move of the draft, trading down six spots to get a highly-regarded starting player for the next dozen years that they were going to take at No. 21 anyway while getting an extra third-round pick that turned out to be a premium position in defensive tackle Brandon Thompson." 

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The Bengals didn't come right out and say that they would have taken Zeitler at No. 21 over David DeCastro, who was widely regarded as the best guard in the draft (he went No. 24 to Pittsburgh), but the fact that they traded down with DeCastro on the board indicates at least that the two were graded virtually identical on the team's board.

The key clue that Zeitler was probably ahead of DeCastro on the Bengals board is the difference in their playing styles and strengths. DeCastro moves like a tackle, but isn't a mauling drive blocker or immovable object. Zeitler isn't quite the pass blocker than DeCastro is, but he is a power player in the running game. The Bengals have replaced one north-south runner (Cedric Benson) with another (Benjarvus Green-Ellis), so Zeitler just makes more sense for them. 

Just another reason the Bengals had one of the best drafts of any NFL franchise.