The coaches tell you what they think of their players in how they use them.
As we've seen with Rey Maualuga, though, who looks light years ahead of his 2010 performance despite not taking a single rep in the middle from December until training camp, the Bengals aren't always on the ball with those assessments. Robert Geathers, Michael Johnson, Keith Rivers and on and on.
I'm pretty sure we'll look back and add Carlos Dunlap to this list.
The Bengals are hinting that either (a) Dunlap can't play the run, (b) Dunlap can't play the run as well as Geathers or © Dunlap won't be as effective if he plays 800 snaps as if he plays 400. I like Geathers, but we're not talking about a quietly dominant run defender. We're not even talking about a solid base defender like Jamaal Anderson has grown into. I think all three explanations are suspect.
In Dunlap, we're talking about a 6-6, 285 pounder with an explosive first step who fell to the second round largely due to character concerns. Does he have issues with consistency against the run? Could he play with better pad level? Probably. But he's more than a rush end. And every snap that Geathers plays ahead of him is a snap he isn't potentially wreaking havoc in the backfield.
None of that matters for fantasy purposes of course. I'm still ranking and drafting him as a low level DE2 / DE3 with upside on the strength of my expectation that he'll eventually get a chance to play some base snaps and the strong effort he's already shown against very tough pass rushing matchups. From a dynasty perspective, he continues to have elite DE1 upside.
