Every year, Bob McGinn speaks to scouts, personnel directors, NFL executives and coaches about the top crop of talent in the NFL Draft. As a result, he gets some interesting analysis and opinions on the players and creates a ranking of the top guys at each position.
We’re taking a look at each of the Bengals draft picks who landed in these rankings. Bengals second round pick Jessie Bates was ranked as the No. 5 safety in the draft in the safety rankings. He’s behind Derwin James (the 17th overall pick in the draft), Minkah Fitzpatrick (11th overall pick), Ronnie Harrison (93rd overall pick in Round 3) and Justin Reid (68th overall pick in Round 3).