4 questions with Bengals player personnel director Duke Tobin
The mastermind behind the Bengals' roster, Duke Tobin, sits down with Enquirer Bengals beat writer Paul Dehner Jr. and weighs in on topics coming to a head this week as he leads the discussion on who stays, who goes and how to work the current system to his advantage in creating the deepest roster possible.
PDJ: How do you deal with imbalance of depth at different positions in constructing the 53-man roster?
DT: I don't think the numbers at each position are set in stone. The last guy at each position is competing with guys at other positions. You have (the 46-man active gameday roster), and once a guy is on the inactive list, it doesn't matter if he is an offensive lineman, a defensive lineman, a DB, it doesn't matter. He's inactive. That group of guys you keep the best depending on the position. What difference does it make if the guy is on the practice squad at this position and inactive this position or vice versa? You keep the one you would least like to lose. If you were choosing between a defensive lineman and a DB for the last, 53rd spot, which do you least want to lose? You keep that one, and he's normally going to be inactive and the other guy you try to get to the practice squad.
PDJ: What is the importance of landing as many current players on the practice squad and having them be the first to fill in should injury occur?
DT: We want that to happen. That's the first place we want to go. We want to be filling our practice squad and then filling our roster with our practice-squad guys. The opening we want to happen into the practice squad. We don't want to come from a free agent onto the regular list. We want to have enough guys on our practice squad that can learn what we are doing, that have been with us for a little while, that can then fit in if we need guys for the active roster. We want to fill from within. I think players realize that. They know if an opportunity arises on the 53 the first place, the best place we are going to look is our own practice squad.
PDJ: How closely are you paying attention to other teams right now?
DT: You can't operate as an island. We watch other teams' preseason games and try to find guys who might fit us or we liked. Seeing how guys we liked in the draft are doing. Amari Cooper is going to make Oakland's team. We aren't that concerned with how he's doing from a personnel standpoint, but the back-end guys we are. (Revisiting draft evaluations) is the best information we have on them then we can immediately pull up everything they have done in the preseason and watch it within 10 minutes. We've got a whole profile. What he was, what he did, and determine whether there is a spot for him here or not.
PDJ: How much can realistically change, and how much is set entering the final preseason game?
DT: A lot of guys are going to get more playing time than they have. If they are not auditioning for us anymore, at least in our mind, they are auditioning league-wide. This game gets used heavily for evaluations of practice-squad guys as the year goes on. We will be looking at practice-squad guys and inevitably the fourth preseason game is the game where they got the most playing time. So, it's important. It's not only important for the current team but the teams that are going to be looking at him going forward this year.