Remember This Gruden Guy, And No Trade???

And I'm not talking about Jon. Bengals offensive coordinator Jay Gruden may have dropped more good tidbits than his older brother Thursday night, and Jon was on for ESPN's 4 hours-plus of draft coverage. After the Bengals drafted A.J. Green in the first round Thursday night, Gruden entered the press conference room with head coach Marvin Lewis and wide receivers coach James Urban. Lewis left the room after making some fairly reserved comments. Urban gave a nice opening statement about Green, then Gruden took off. "I’m a little bit more excited than anybody else here, I guess. I mean, I feel like I just got up on Christmas and opened up my favorite present. I’m so fired up." said Gruden. Later the former University of Louisville quarterback addressed the question of who will throw the ball to Green "Ah, we’ll find somebody (laughs). Surely somebody ought to come throw to this son-of-a-gun. I might come out of retirement for this guy (laughs). I am fired up. To me, the beauty of throwing to him is that he might be covered and you can put ball up and he will get it." Then came his response to the low score of 10 Green reportedly scored on the NFL Wonderlic test at the combine, “The Wonderlic score (pause)… yeah. I don’t know. All I know is that he plays smart and he makes big plays all the time. He’s consistently done that since he was a freshman in high school, and there’s no Wonderlic test that can take that away. In talking to him and meeting with him, I know that if he is a little slower, which I don’t think he is, we’ll take time with him and make it comfortable for him. That’s our job, and mainly his job (Urban), to make sure that he learns. And he will learn. He’s a great player, and he’s a willing player. He’ll be here on time every day, and he’ll practice hard every day. Wonderlic-shmunderlic. He’s going to be fine.” If Gruden can coach offense the way he answers questions in a refreshing, entertaining way, we're looking at another head coach named Gruden in the NFL.

Marvin Lewis told me Thursday night the Falcons had been talking to the Bengals for the past week. he wouldn't confirm that an offer was made, but if they gave Cleveland 5 picks for the 6th pick, you have to think they were offering at least that to the Bengals. I would have done the deal. The Bengals have too many holes to fill and not enough picks to do it. An extra 2 this year, and an extra 1 and 2 next year would have been handy. Heck, there's no law that you can't use those picks to get something else (Kolb, Flynn) you need when teams can trade again.
Not the best move in my book.

As for Green, think Carl Pickens. Not attitude-wise, but ability-wise when it come to making the contested catch. Pickens rarely, if ever, lost a contested catch. I've seen some tape of A.J., but not a lot. But those who have seen a lot say this guy doesn't lose either. In fact, former Bengal and former scout Charles Fisher went over a play with me that resulted in a Green touchdown on a jump ball. Charles says the cornerback did everything right on the play, but Green still won the battle and came down with the touchdown pass. He is very, very good.