Bengals Director of Pro Scouting Steven Radicevic weighs in on the 2024 NFL Draft

Bengals Director of Pro Scouting Steven Radicevic joins the guys to preview the 2024 NFL Draft. He discusses how the Bengals have approached the build up to the draft and building their board, the strength and depth of the draft class, how the process has evolved over the years, and more! Join the Locked On Bengals Insider Community! https://joinsubtext.com/lockedonbengalsFind and follow Locked On Bengals on your favorite podcast platforms:Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/locked-on-bengals-daily-podcast-on-the-cincinnati-bengals/id1159723162Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7AObc0lh0WmQl5fJVgtajsGoogle Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vbG9ja2Vkb25iZW5nYWxz?sa=X&ved=0CAYQrrcFahcKEwio_sXtj8nuAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAgStitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/locked-on-bengals
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Episode Transcript

(00:02):
It's the Lockdown Podcast network, yourteam every Day. Let's talk to the
Bengals Director of Pro Scouting, SteveArdesovich about the Bengals prep and plans for
this year's draft. You are Lockedon Bengals, your daily Cincinnati Bengals podcast,

(00:29):
part of the lockedwn podcast network,Your team every Day. What up,
Bengals fans and welcome to another episodeof the Lockdown Bengals Podcast. I'm
your host, Jake Lisco. He'syour host, James Rapine. We are
very excited for the NFL Draft hereon Lockdow Bengals, and we're gonna have
a good one today with Steve inToday's episode brought to you by game Time,

(00:51):
where you can save twenty dollars offyour first purchase of tickets with promo
code Locked on NFL in the gameTime app into all the every days and
those out there that make us yourfirst listen. Hope you're excited as we
are. And James, No,you're excited too. Hell yeah, it's
Draft week. Let's go. It'shere, We're ready to go. We
have Steve Rdisovich. You're gonna hearfrom him in just a second. Make
sure you subscribe on YouTube follow whereveryou get your podcasts and more. Locked.

(01:15):
We're loaded and we are ready forDraft week. We hope you are
too, and you can get readywith this podcast. So without further ado,
Jake, by the way, shoutout to Emily Parker for setting this
up. Steve Ridisovich, the Bengalsdirector of pro scouting, joined us and
let's let's get to our conversation withhim. Let's get into some twenty twenty

(01:36):
four draft talk with Steve Dussovich,the Bengals pro scouting director. And Steve,
when we look at this class,I know you're the pro scouting director.
You did a lot of work withfree agency, but it's draft week.
So when we think about the depthand the strength of this class,
you hear a lot of it's astrong receiver class, it's a strong tackle
class. It's a strong this it'sa strong that. When you think about

(01:57):
depth versus strength this class, wheredo you think is top heavy? Where's
the real depth and strength? Fromyour perspective as the Bengals are looking at
it, So where's the real depthin this draft class? Just off the
top of my head, I wouldsay you've got quality players in the receiver

(02:17):
group, guys that I think,you know, you'll get a good value
at, you know, in themiddle of the rounds. Guys that you
know, normal typically would be youknow, top one or two round draft
picks. You may be able toget that guy in the third round.
Other other spots where there might besome some good depth at defensive end.
I do think there's some quality playersthere in the middle of the draft as

(02:40):
well. Offensive line obviously, Iknow that you know how deep a tackle
group is. I do think it'sa it's a good group there. Uh,
And there's some quality interior offensive linemanthat I think will go in the
you know, second and third typeround. So I just off the top

(03:00):
of my head, I would saythose are the spots that stick out when
a position like offensive tackle, whichis obviously coveted among NFL teams, and
you have a class like the onewe have this year where it seems like
they're just going to fly off theboard early, but that there is some
solid depth as well over the firstcouple of rounds at least is it are

(03:23):
you almost worried that it's going tofly off the board because you're picking eighteenth
and then you got to wait untilpick forty nine. How do you balance
that because I think a lot ofpeople just look at it and say,
oh, well, it's a deeptackle class. At the same time,
those guys, as you know,are coveted and are likely going to fly
off the board. Yeah, Ithink in the first round you're going to
look to try to add a premierlevel player, talent guy that's going to

(03:46):
come in and be able to contributeright away. So wherever whatever spot that
hits on our roster, I thinkwe'll look to fill it in in the
rounds following that. But I don'tthink there's ever a panic or a worry
if we don't if we don't goa certain position in the first round,
I think we feel good with theway we have things set up and structured.

(04:08):
After that, and we're going totalk a little bit about how you
have things set up and structured.You've, over the last couple of weeks
presumably been going through your meetings,setting your draft board, something that we
tried to do last week. Wetried to get through just stacking the first
round, try to get into thesecond round, and it was a couple
of hours. It's an exhausting youknow, back and forth process, trying

(04:30):
to figure out where the deal breakersare and all this stuff. How long
does it take you guys to setyour board? Is that the last couple
of weeks leading into the draft finallyculminating and bringing all that information together into
one board. Yeah, I wouldsay, you know, during the season,
we're going into schools and we're tryingto identify the prospects. We're trying
to put them in rounds, tryingto dig up as much character and medical

(04:54):
information as we can. And thenI would say, really no, let's
say, you know, after theAll Star Games, you get a better
feel for the players, after spendingtime with them, interviewing them. February,
we come back, we gather moreinformation. I would say, really
like this whole stacking process would beginend of March early April, where we're

(05:17):
starting to kind of, you know, put guys in a ranking order.
Is there is it debate style?Do you guys have debates? Is it
just discussion? Obviously not everyone's goingto agree. I think that's it's It's
interesting because I think a lot ofpeople picture it as the draft debates happening

(05:38):
on Thursday, Friday, Saturday.Obviously, that's not the case. You
guys are ironing out the board,so there aren't debates happening in real time
and you can just react to theboard. So what are those conversations like
and is it are there debates?Does it get heated at times? You
know, I think everyone does areally good job of respecting everyone us his

(06:00):
opinion in the draft room. SoI wouldn't say there's it never gets to
the level of being heated. ButI do think we do have good debates
and and open discussions on players,and so I do think it's a combination
of both. But again I wouldI would never say that it gets heated
in there. I do think ourguys do a good job of respecting,
you know, whether it's the coach'sopinions or whoever it may be, And

(06:24):
the coaches do a good job ofrespecting our opinions and finding common ground on
players. So you don't have anyoneliterally standing on or banging on tables for
players. That's never happened. Goodstories there, No, I mean,
like I said, definitely, there'sdefinitely that that goes on. I just

(06:46):
just in terms of the preparation inthe and the work up to it.
I would say it's more more ofa discussion with some debate just in terms
of trying to get players in theright the right spot. You mentioned character
earlier, and I think character iscertainly something that anytime the Zach Taylor era
especially comes up, it gets broughtup in working with him, working with

(07:11):
the staff. Now, for aslong as you have You're six, You're
six, You're five or six,something like that, is it? Do
you have an idea of of theguys that are going to fit, Not
not from a style football standpoint,because obviously I think you do, but
from a character standpoint all the offthe field stuff. Is there synergy there,
because it does feel like that everyone'sin sync when it comes to that.

(07:34):
Yeah, I would say there definitelyis. I mean, it's been
a focal part of our their offseasonsince Zaxman here. Uh. You know,
we really try to hit on onguys that love football, high energy
players, guys that live it,live the game. You know it are
going to be guys that can developin the leaders on a roster. Today's

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breaking ties. As you're going throughthat stacking process and you're having the very
respectful everyone is trying to find commonground. Nobody's standing on tables discussions in
your draft rooms where we don't haveany fun stories about Steve getting up and

(09:24):
standing on the table for anybody heloves unfortunately. What are the tiebreakers?
Do you guys have some objective,numeric or analytical kind of tiebreakers that come
in or do you guys hash outeach of those individually? And are there
still a lot of subjective factors therewhere stacking a draft board is a lot

(09:45):
of art more than a science perse. Yeah, I would say it's
more of an art, But wedo, I mean you do look at
you know, the analytics part ofit. You do try to take an
account the character part of it.You try to take it a part of
the medical part of it. Sothere are different you know, tiebreakers obviously,
and a lot of it will fitto your style of scheme. You

(10:05):
know, a certain player may fitthe scheme, our scheme better than others
do. So you really have totake the whole player as a package and
try to compare them. If you'reif you're comparing comparing one precision groups specifically,
how big of a factor It's ahuge factor obviously is age. Age
is a factor, But with theCOVID year and everything like that, a

(10:26):
lot of these players are older.I mean, when we were going down
the list, if they're not twentythree or going on twenty three or maybe
twenty four, it almost seemed likethey were the outlier at twenty one.
And I know there are some twentyyear old prospects in this class as well,
But how do you balance that whenthe entire board is a bit older

(10:46):
than it would have been, sayfive, six years ago. Yeah,
that's a good question. I youknow, I think a lot of it.
Certain positions take a little bit moretime to develop, and guys physically
take a little bit more time tomature there. So for example, yeah,
a tackle that's twenty one, you'reprojecting what he's going to look like

(11:11):
compared to this tackle that's coming outthat's twenty three in two years down the
line. So yeah, I meana lot of it's you're just projecting a
younger player, whereas a twenty threeyear old tackle may be more physically ready
to go. Now, does thistwenty one year old have more upside in
future years and ability to develop andassend beyond that twenty three. Sorry,

(11:35):
there are a couple of players speakingon experience and development in this class that
have a surprising amount of inexperience atthe college level, A rare amount of
inexperience in terms of snaps played atthe college level, A couple of tackles
that stand out, even some defensivetackles that stand out in that category.
Is that a different kind of projectionthan you maybe sometimes have to make where

(11:58):
it's not necessarily that there's raw techniqueon tape or something like that, but
it's just an inexperienced thing. It'sa have they seen all these different looks
where maybe they're not getting a preponderanceof NFL style opposition with the way the
college game is going anyway, Buthow does that inexperienced way into things as

(12:18):
you guys are evaluating players. Ithink that's also a part of part of
the when you're evaluating players at acertain position, that plays into that player's
package, So you can try to, you know, compare, say you're
comparing ten different players at the sameposition group and you feel they're all equal.

(12:41):
You know, that's that may bea little bit of a concern and
that and that you know, ifif there's a player that hasn't played as
much, that may may play intoit. So it's just it's a it
is a you know, slight redflag if there's a player that has doesn't
have as much playtime or experience asanother player that may be just equal in

(13:01):
terms of talent. So yeah,I think you just again you just have
to evaluate the whole group when youidentify in it. You mentioned receiver,
but you mentioned defensive ends or whateverposition. From a depth standpoint, when
you identify in any draft that there'sdepth at a specific position, does it

(13:24):
impact how you would look at theearly guys given if you think there are
more guys that are could give youvalue, say in round three or four,
or how does that impact things asyou stack these guys in rank them.
And again I'm not necessarily talking aboutthe positions you mentioned, but just
in general, Yeah, I meanpeople will view it differently. I have

(13:46):
my own opinion on it. LikeI think in the first two rounds,
you have to come away with aguy that's going to come in and start
and a guy that has the abilityto be able to be a premier type
player. So I think there's differentphilosophies, they're different ways that guys around
the league view. But in myopinion, if you have a chance to
get a premiere, high level player, you know, obviously you try to

(14:09):
play the draft the draft board asmuch as well as you can. And
if you feel like there's depth atdefensive end and that's a position you need,
and maybe you're going from a guythat you have graded at nine out
of ten and you can get thisplayer that's a eight out of ten around

(14:30):
later, obviously you would prefer todo that, but you just never know
how it's going to shake out.There could be a run on defensive ends
between those two picks and you're leftlooking at a player that you had a
grade at a six out of ten. So I think in any situation,
you're trying to get a premier playerwith your first two picks. You mentioned

(14:50):
premier players. You mentioned also inan interview with Jeff Hobson. I think
earlier this month that they are morefirst round grades in the eighteen to twenty
five range this year than many years, and you've been at the back of
the first round, well the backof every round the last couple of years.
Picking a little bit earlier this year, how does that change the approach
in the first round or change anything? I guess in your process when you're

(15:15):
picking a little bit earlier and yousee this class as one that has more
first round grades than you've seen fora few years, Yeah, I think
I think we feel good with wherewe're at, you know, obviously I
think it's it'll be, uh,We're going to end up with a player
that we all feel comfortable with,we all like, and that we all
feel like is going to be acontributor for us in year one. Along

(15:37):
those same lines, I feel likea lot of time after the pick has
made we hear you know, wehad a first round grade on this guy
we got in the second round,or we had a first round grade on
this guy that couldn't believe he wasavailable to us. Is that just how
much disparity do you think there isbetween you've been doing this for a while
now, between different draft boards.How often does that happen where you really

(15:58):
see the players much later than youexpect them to be available based on your
board. I would say a decentamount I would say, there's, you
know, a good majority of theleague SE's you know, they all get
paid for what they do and theyall see the players similarly. But I
would say there are you know,off the wall picks that obviously push some
other players down throughout the draft.But yeah, I would say for the

(16:23):
most part, we all, youknow, we all feel good with the
way our board is said, andwe'll get players to add a good value.
At some point, you mentioned firstround in getting a starting level player
or obviously a contributor, someone thatcan come in and make an impact right
away. How hard was it reflectingand just looking back at the past few

(16:48):
drafts after obviously you have Joe Burrowand then to Higgins in twenty twenty.
After that you have Jamar Chase atfive, and then you're moving all the
way back to pick thirty one whenyou took back so obviously pick twenty eight
last year. How hard is itto find those type of guys and identify
them that much later versus where youwere a few years ago. Yeah,

(17:10):
I mean, obviously you're you can'tproject how those thirty one picks or however
it maybe are going to go.Obviously, if you have a better feel
for it if you're picking in thetop ten. So yeah, it's a
little bit more difficult to just predictwhen you're in the bottom bottom of the
first round, even really where we'reabout where we are, you know,

(17:33):
kind of after us, I thinkI think it gets you know, I
think there may be some guys thatare second third round players that go,
you know after our pick. Sobut yeah, again it's it's always harder
to predict the later in the inthe first round you get. This episode
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(19:48):
You talked about that with trying tofind those guys at thirty one the last
couple of years, you can't projectthe way things are going to go,
whether it's free agency or the draft, you're out always pivoting, or even
when the coaches get guys on thepractice field for the first time. Sometimes
you need to pivot when you realizesomething is a little bit different or has
gone a different way than you expected. So along those lines, can can

(20:10):
you talk about how the plan forDaxel maybe has changed from the time you
drafted him to what's going on now? Yeah, that'd probably be more more
question for the coaches and it wouldbe for me, So I would steer
that towards No, that's fair.I think that's what what's interesting about Dax
is obviously he checks so many boxesfrom a prospect standpoint for sure, and

(20:36):
last year because he's been such atopic, that's why we have it on
the list. Yeah, last year, he's like, at least for me
outside looking in, like three droppedinterceptions where he gets himself in the right
spot, like the Jacksonville one comesto mind. There were a few others
where he has five picks, onehundred and ten tackles and it's like,
oh, well, on paper,that's not a bad year for his first
year starting at safety. What whatstood out about him as a prospect when

(21:02):
when you guys took him, becauseobviously he's versatile and can do all of
these things and they're still trying tofigure out exactly how he's going to fit
just what you said, his versatility, you know, I think we felt
like obviously his position in college isa little bit different than where we've played
him. You know, he kindof played that Kyle Hamilton role, which

(21:26):
you know in Baltimore where they kindof use him as a nickel and blitz
him a decent amount. But wefeel like he's you know, he can
he can hit on all three spotsat safety, nickel and possibly placed an
outside corner, so you know,I think that was one of the most
attractive things about him was just physicallyhe has everything in his body to be
a premier type player and be anelite player in the NFL. It's just

(21:48):
finding the right home for him thatmakes sense. Totally different question, switching
topics a little bit here, gettingback to this year's draft and maybe reflecting
a little bit on the time you'vehad with Zach Taylor. Some evolutions in
process from your perspective, What aresome big lessons learned for you recently or
maybe some things that you've realized andchanged in your process, whether it's new

(22:11):
data becoming available or you know,advanced GPS stuff that has been refined over
the years, or new realizations.Are there big or notable process changes that
aren't giving away trade secrets that youcan talk about. Yeah, I mean,
obviously analytics and all that's picked upsignificantly over the years, and I

(22:33):
think Sam and Elizabeth did a reallygood job of just incorporating that into our
process. So I would say that'ssomething that we've advanced on a decent amount
over the last few years, butthat that would probably be the biggest thing
that jumps out just in terms ofthe way things have kind of changed.
And when you're looking at certain playersthat have failed over the years and why

(22:53):
they have failed, you know,was it a physical trait they had something
that, you know, something thatmay be able to correlate with future years
drafts. How important just along thoselines is athletic testing And I know you've
been asked that, so I'm goingto try to take it a step forward.
If you have a player three playersthat have great film, obviously the

(23:18):
one that tests and has great film, that's the one that you're trying to
find because they check all the boxes. But what if someone just hits it
out of the park at the combineor at their pro day, but might
not have the best film versus someonethat it doesn't test well and runs a
slower forty than you expect but looksfast on film or the GPS numbers track,
Like how tough is it now tobalance those and how how much stock

(23:45):
do you put in testing versus nottesting well? It's it's a tool,
right, so like we have,it's information that we can gather on players,
and it does help us make anevaluation on someone, but it's not
what we're primarily making Our evaluation.Well, the most important thing for us
is film and how a player playson tape, and that's what we're we're

(24:06):
grading. We're not grading is fortytimes. We're not grading you know,
shuttle times. I mean that itis important. It's a tool, right,
It's something that helps kind of putthis whole player's package together. And
at the end of the day,Yeah, you may be comparing apples to
apples, and maybe this guy's alittle bit faster and a little bit more
athletic, but they're the same player. We feel the same about them on

(24:29):
tape, so maybe you give himthe slight bump again, that may be
just a tiebreaker, but it's notwhat we're what we're we're evaluating players on
you know, they're testing numbers.I would say the film is the most
important thing. So when a guydoesn't test or opts out of testing,
and there have been some prominent firstround, top of the first round prospects

(24:52):
in this draft, you have optedout of testing altogether, How does that
impact things? Where do your fansjust make way more of a big deal
out of it than you guys doin the drafter, I think it depends
what the reason, you know,the reasoning behind it. And you know,
a player may may have medical issuethat maybe led to them not being

(25:14):
able to test for it. Butobviously, you know, if they're not
testing for certain reason, there's probablythere's there's a reason to it, right,
I mean, they're they're uncomfortable withit, so I uh, yeah,
I mean you have to talk aboutit at least, it's something that
you talk about. But again thatthe film is the most important thing that
we focus on as far as youand you personally. I don't know,

(25:41):
Jake, if you have anything elseon this year's draft, but I do
I do want to ask you beforewe let you go about the GM Accelerator
program that you're a part of.What what has that been like? And
uh, I'm sure it's helped yougrow. Oh, it was awesome.
It's a it was a great experience. Uh. They bring executives from from
around the league. They had speakerscome talk to us, you know,

(26:03):
talk about leadership styles and things thatwork and how to present yourself in front
of a group. So Belinda Gardnerput it together from the NFL League office.
She did a phenomenal job and it'salso a really good networking opportunity just
to meet other people around the leaguethat are in similar situations in there.

(26:25):
They were fortunate to get the invitethere, so it was a really cool
experience, and again it was itwas a one time event this last when
it was it right after this season, but I can't even remember that.
But yeah, it was a greatevent and very well run. Glad to
see you get to be a partof that and appreciate all the insight here

(26:48):
as we look ahead to the twentytwenty four NFL Draft just around the corner.
Steve, appreciate the time and insightas always and hope to talk to
you against it. Thank you,guys. I appreciate you guys having me
on really good stuff there from SteveRodisovich, the Bengals director of pro scouting,
and Jake. Obviously, it's ahuge week at pay Course Stadium.

(27:11):
I will be there and we willhave you covered all week long. We
have Joe Goodbarry on tap this weekand our predictive mock drafts and then it
is time for the twenty twenty fourNFL Draft. We will have you covered.
So subscribe on YouTube, follow wheveryou get your podcasts, and for
Jake Lisco. I'm James Arpen.Thank you so much for listening to the
Lockdown Bengals podcast. Hey Prime Members, you can listen to this Luckdown podcast

(27:38):
add free on Amazon Music. Downloadthe Amazon Music app today