Rex Ryan Calls Bengals DT Dexter Lawrence the NFL's Best
The Bengals didn't trade for a good defensive tackle. In Rex Ryan's estimation, they traded for the best one in football.
Ryan, the former NFL head coach, called Cincinnati's Dexter Lawrence the top defensive tackle in the game, per Pro Football Network. The Bengals acquired Lawrence in a blockbuster trade, and he's now playing for them.
Superlatives are cheap. This one has a specific function: it tells you what Cincinnati thinks it bought. Interior defensive line play hides from the box score. Edge rushers get paid for sacks. Tackles get paid for the half-second of pocket collapse that never lands in a stat line.
Cincinnati's most recent box score shows a front already producing. Jonathan Allen logged a sack and three tackles for loss. Cedric Johnson added two sacks. That's pressure from the middle of the line, and Lawrence is the upgrade layered on top of it, not a patch over a hole.
The trade matters because of who's on the other side of the ball. Joe Burrow threw for 207 yards and two touchdowns on 20-of-31 passing in that same game, with Ja'Marr Chase catching seven for 75 and two scores. The offense isn't the question in Cincinnati. The defense is, and it has been.
One number from that box score deserves a second look. The Bengals' leading tacklers were linebacker Demetrius Knight Jr. (12) and safety Dax Hill (10, with four pass breakups). When a safety and a linebacker are cleaning up that much, the front isn't winning at the line of scrimmage. That is precisely the job Lawrence was brought in to take.
Ryan's label also carries an implicit scouting report. If Lawrence is the best, opponents have to decide between doubling him and leaving Allen singled up, or sliding help and letting Cincinnati's secondary play with an extra body. Either answer is better for the Bengals than what they had.
My verdict, and I'll own it: Ryan is right about the player, and the trade is defensible regardless of the label. Whether one defensive tackle repairs a defense is a separate question, and it gets answered on Sundays. Cincinnati's offense can win shootouts. The Lawrence move is the front office conceding that shootouts aren't a plan.
