The month of April has arrived, indicating a shift in the NFL offseason from free agency to the NFL Draft.
Six new veterans have joined the Cincinnati Bengals, and they all play positions of need. Safety, running back, tight end, defensive tackle, and offensive tackle have all been addressed in some capacity, though long-term needs are still prevalent at a few important positions.
The interior defensive line may've gotten a pass-rush boost with Sheldon Rankins, but it still has a DJ Reader-size hole in it. There's not many players in this year's class that can fill it all by himself. T'Vondre Sweat looks like the exception.
T'Vondre Sweat remains the best second round pick the Bengals can make
This pick has a chance of addressing a number of positions. Wide receiver, cornerback, and even tight end has a precedent of garnering the Bengals' attention this early in the draft. After the way free agency unfolded, Sweat still looks like the most intriguing option at this juncture, as we've mentioned multiple times over the past two months.
Ranked 50th on the current Consensus Big Board, Sweat has held his position as the top nose tackle in this draft class, a position the Bengals still have yet to address on the roster.
Had Sweat declared last year, he likely wouldn't be in the conversation to be drafted this high. His 2023 season was elite in every sense of the word. Pro Football Focus identifies four of their metrics to be stable in terms of predicting future success for interior defensive linemen: Pass rush grade vs. true pass sets, pass-rush win percentage, run-defense grade, and run-stop percentage.
Sweat ranked in the 90th percentile or above in all four metrics. No one can top his 100th percentile grade against the run.
While he didn't always play the nose for Texas, his size at 6-5, 366 pounds is ideal for the position, and he's got enough athleticism to stay afloat in the NFL. Relative to his density, both his speed and and explosion ranked above the 80th percentile. That he weighed in at the NFL Scouting Combine almost exactly to what his listed weight was in college checked another important box.
Sweat has done everything one could've hoped this offseason for teams in need of raw strength inside. The Bengals need that more than most.
Sweat is the ideal DJ Reader replacement for Cincinnati
The nose tackle position in Cincinnati has been manned by Reader for the past few years. Now they're left figuring out how to properly move on from him. Rankins was added in free agency, but he's always been more of a 3-technique rather than a two-gapping run defender closer to the center. The Bengals don't have a natural player at that spot on the roster.
If defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo still plans on deploying a big-bodied 2i that can two-gap against the backside guard, Sweat would be perfect for the role. No one in the FBS had a greater PFF overall grade (91.7) or run-defense grade (92.0) than Sweat in 2023, and he did this while having similar gap responsibilities as Reader.
Even when Reader was healthy and on the field, the Bengals were lackluster at stopping the run last year. The issues were only exacerbated when he had to be rotated out. Inserting Sweat wouldn't completely alleviate all concerns, but it'd go a long way towards finding a solution in the middle.
Sweat would have an obvious role on short yardage situations and base downs, but his proficiency as a pass rusher makes him a truly worthy heir to Reader's throne at nose tackle. His pass-rush win rate of 15.3% last year was just behind Illinois' Johnny Newton for eighth in the country among Power 5 defensive tackles.
Final word
Sweat has done enough over the past few months to still be considered a worthy late-second round selection, right where the Bengals are slated to pick in the round. The franchise has not used a Day 2 pick on a defensive tackle in over a decade. They're overdue to add a player like Sweat.
Check out James Foster's full report on Sweat and every other top prospect in A to Z Sports' full big board below:
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