CINCINNATI — Cincinnati Bengals director of player personnel Duke Tobin addressed the Cincinnati media Friday. Though Tobin’s speaking with the media isn’t new, the timing, location and spotlight of accountability were unprecedented.
As was the length. Tobin spoke for one hour and three minutes, fielding dozens of questions about the state of an organization that has missed the playoffs in three consecutive seasons.
Tobin’s first public comments after a season traditionally come when he addresses reporters in Mobile, Ala., for the Senior Bowl, and he doesn’t speak on the record to independent media once training camp begins in July, preferring coach Zac Taylor serve as the team’s voice.
The change produced transparency and accountability for the personnel department and raises questions about what could change the results, given the entire front office and coaching staff are returning for next season.
Tobin touched on numerous topics, but six key points and themes emerged from the 63 minutes: The team’s focus on the pass rush, lacking defensive leadership, finishing close games, defense of his operation, changes in process and why he decided to do this.
Here’s a deeper look at what he said on those themes and why they were important.
Nothing is really changing; winning will be enough for Burrow
Joe Burrow was adamant about change. What needs to change?
Our record.
Importance: Tobin went on to offer up the smaller changes and tweaks that occur every offseason, but the point of this spoke volumes. If anybody came into this news conference thinking Tobin was going to offer an admission of philosophical errors or a drastic rethinking of the entire process, they left feeling empty.
The scouting department will stay the same. The coaching staff will stay the same. The process of player acquisition will stay the same. There were no expressions of regret over numerous contentious contract negotiations or a desire to be more aggressive in early extensions to avoid drama, distraction and inflation.
This was mostly a recognition of building off what progress they felt from last year, and that adding playmakers on defense should be enough to turn this three-year spell around.
As multiple questions about Burrow’s public frustration and unhappiness were lobbed his way, Tobin at one point raised his hand: “Guess who else wasn’t happy this year? Me. I wasn’t happy. Nobody’s happy when it’s not going well.”
Maybe another offseason will provide the right mix of players to return to the playoffs where Burrow belongs, but operational and philosophical change won’t be the reason.
Defending himself and (the size of) his staff
Why should fans have belief in the staff and in you?
I understand that they probably don’t right now. All I can do is work us out of it. We have done it before. We have done it before with a team full of draft choices and had high-level football teams. We have done it before with a blend of free agents and draft choices, and then we have also taken us to the Super Bowl with a number of UFA signings. We can add to the team in a lot of different areas. We have excellent scouts who give us the analysis. It’s on us to make the right decisions.
Rethinking the size of the scouting department?
Our scouting staff is, in my opinion, the size that it is because I think the collaboration is better at that size. We have never lacked for information on a player. There’s never been a player selected that we didn’t know anything about. There’s never been a player selected that we didn’t have multiple reports and a large background on. It’s not about the volume of information we have. If we make a mistake, it’s because at the decision point, we made the wrong decision. But it wasn’t because we didn’t have information on the player. We have information, and we have plenty of opinion on the player. We’ve made a lot of good picks. I get that people don’t believe we’ve made any good picks. We’ve made a lot of good picks on our current roster, on past rosters, and there will be more on future rosters. I really believe that.
Importance: I have been covering Tobin and this personnel department for 16 seasons. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked him about having the smallest scouting staff in the league and if there is any intention to increase the size. He’s never wavered on his opinion about the small size producing increased collaboration. He wants the right voices, not more voices, he has often said. He views their size as a feature rather than a defect.
He spent a good portion of Friday touting the past successes of the staff, specifically in free agency, building the 2021 and 2022 Super Bowl and AFC Championship teams. It’s understandable to stand up for his people and their talent. He’s done so many times over the years. They’ll continue to have heavy reliance on the coaching staff in the evaluation realm, as well. The bottom line: There has always been too much stress put on those “right voices,” and taking grunt work off their plate would allow them to focus more on grinding through the details of the biggest decisions. Friday reiterated that his stance on what a personnel department should look like will not be changing.
Offseason focus: Pass rush. Pass rush. Pass rush.
Pass rush is king … successful defenses, in my opinion, they have to be able to pressure the passer. You’d like to be able to pressure with four (pass rushers). I think we need, we need pass rush. I think that relieves some of the strain on the coverage. So I’m a guy that believes in the front on both sides of the ball, that is my focus.
Importance: This offered the most obvious hint at the offseason focus. Tobin will be hunting pass rushers. That’s a lesson we could have seen coming last year when they needed pass-rush help, and the offseason moves were for a run-stuffing defensive tackle in TJ Slaton and a rotational veteran with modest win rates in BJ Hill.
The idea then was that stopping the run would allow more opportunities for Trey Hendrickson and others to make an impact. That didn’t play out because they didn’t employ enough top rushers (and Hendrickson missed the majority of the season). Cincinnati finished 24th in pressure rate last year and 31st in average time to those pressures. They haven’t landed in the top 14 of the NFL in either category any of the last three seasons.
Tobin voiced a clear desire to better attack that need this year, one when top Hendrickson hits free agency (and is not expected to return, though Tobin didn’t commit to news on that front). Tobin touted his staff’s history of finding pass rushers when they acquired Hill, Ogunjobi and Hendrickson in 2021, and it certainly sounds like a similar, targeted approach to that problem is the top priority of free agency.
Defensive leadership, building blocks
I see growth in a 24-year-old Myles Murphy and young corners (Dax Hill and DJ Turner) who have taken the jump, and Jordan Battle who has taken the jump. The one thing we really need is we need those guys or somebody else to take on a leadership role and demand the accountability and demand the execution. We need more leadership. We have tons of leadership on the offensive side of the ball. We need somebody, multiple people, to step up and lead that group from within our team. And it could come from the outside, and it could come from the inside. We can get improvement from both of those areas.
Importance: This wouldn’t be surprising considering two of the three captains on this past season’s defense were essentially nonfactors the majority of the year (Hendrickson and Logan Wilson). Tobin’s pushing Turner, an obvious cornerstone, to help motivate others to put in the same work he did to make his leap this year. Turner acknowledged coaches have prompted him to do as much, meeting with rookies after the season to explain what worked for him.
More than that, though, this again turns to free agency. Specifically, finding a leader at the center of the defense in the linebackers group or at safety would be the clearest path to fix this desired goal. Whether talking about an extreme veteran such as 36-year-old free agent Demario Davis or a younger free agent with a leadership background, Tobin was adamant about enhancing the accountability on that side of the ball.
If you are counting who is definitely slotted as starters next season, Murphy, Battle, Hill and Turner are officially locks after hearing Tobin echo what coaches have said in recent weeks. The other seven spots appear up in the air.
Closing games
It’s very frustrating as we’ve lost so many close games. Incredibly frustrating. Had we just won our share of those, not more than our share, we’d be talking about at least having opportunities in the playoffs, which is where we feel we should be. I know we haven’t shown that. I’m not asking anyone else to feel that way. Within this building, we know we should be there.
It falls at all of our feet. My feet. Our players’ feet. We put a lot of work into getting the technique taught. Then the technique isn’t implemented on the last play of the Chicago game, and you end up where you end up. There’s a focus and a strain and a finish that we have to instill. Winning is not easy. We have to get to that point where that focus, strain and finish is in our DNA. Our players have to understand that. On this snap, I’m playing the right technique. I’m not doing my own thing.
It’s frustrating for our fans. It’s frustrating for us. I hate that it’s frustrating for our fans. We have to get over that. Every person in our locker room on our coaching level and in our front office has to understand that when it comes time to win a game, you have to believe and strain and finish. It’s been our biggest problem.
Importance: Tobin, at one point, thanked someone for bringing this topic to light, and this was as adamant as he was on any topic. He did mention they had to go much of the year without their “aces,” Burrow and Hendrickson, the star players most counted on to produce when the game is on the line. Instilling the “DNA” of finishing well won’t be easy. Burrow owns a .464 winning percentage in one-score games as a starter; compare that with Patrick Mahomes, who owns a .644 win percentage. That’s not a slight against Burrow, merely to point out this goes well beyond quarterback play.
Tobin didn’t take a shot at Taylor discussing the team’s failure to finish, but obviously, the success in closing out games falls at Taylor’s feet in many ways.
Inevitably, in the NFL, nearly all seasons come down to finishing out one-score games. Those moments more often than not come down to great players making critical plays. Tobin needs to add more quality players to this defense, and they’ll make enough plays to finish games.
Going to do this again
It was important for me to talk to the fans. I recognize it was important for you guys to get the opportunity. Normally, I do this in Mobile, and some of you show up and some of you don’t. I guess I’ve come around. I can change. And if this is something that you guys feel is important, I’m happy to do that. During the season, Zac is our voice, and Zac is somebody that speaks for us. We communicate all the time with him, and he understands everything that’s going on, and he is the voice of our team. And during the season, it’s about the players and it’s about the coaching staff, and that’s what it’s about. And so he is the guy that you’ll hear from during the season, period. Some organizations run that way, some do it differently. But we believe in his message, and his message is our message during the season.
Importance: This was the first time Tobin spoke in this way this close to the season in Cincinnati, so he could field all the tough questions lobbed at Taylor during the year. There was no sense entering the day that this would be a regular occurrence. Tobin essentially said he’d be happy to do it. After he offered 63 minutes of insight into the state of the team, I’d imagine we will certainly be requesting him at the end of the season next year, too. He just hopes it comes much later in the calendar.