Mike Florio and Chris Simms discuss how Myles Murphy will be a key contributor for the Bengals to win tough AFC playoff games down the stretch.

Video Transcript

MIKE FLORIO: The Bengals have Trey Hendrickson, who's been a great free agent addition for them. They signed him from the Saints. There was questions. You know, he had one good year. Is he going to flame out? He's been very good with the Bengals. They pick up Myles Murphy with the 28th pick, not Michael Mayer, who I thought maybe that's who they'd take. They could definitely use a young pass-catching tight end to develop. But they have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to targets for Joe Burrow.

You still need to have that other side of the ball. You need to take care of your defense. You need to have those bodies that can make a difference in playoff games, when it's time to make a stop. Look what happened to Joe Burrow when it felt like the Bengals were going to drive down and win the AFC Championship. What happens? Chris Jones happens. So they need guys who can make stuff happen to shut down the great quarterbacks in the AFC in that moment, where you just need to break serve one time to win a playoff game.

CHRIS SIMMS: Yeah. That-- that's exactly right. It's the AFC, like you said. I mean, not only in their division, but the rest of the conference. It's just-- it's the best the AFC has been since the '70s. I mean, that's my stance. It's unbelievable right now, the talent. And I think probably they looked at it, Mike, right whereas Michael Mayer is a great shiny object and going to be a really good football player. They probably were like, man, we got a lot of assets on offense right now. We got that. We've got to start thinking about defense for the future a little bit.

Hendrickson stuff, you're talking about. You know, Sam Hubbard. He could be a guy where this could be his last year there too, last year of the contract. They could-- I mean, it's not the last year of his contract. He's got another one. But it could be the year they can get out there.

And then of course, again, as we're seeing from the Eagles, the 49ers, you know even the Chiefs, that to your point, you've got to have more than four. You got to. It's an NFL passing league right now. And we got some quarterbacks that, yeah, they're going to drop back 45 times a game. And you've got to have fresh bodies to go after them. And it's future, and right now it all works. And I think that's where the beauty of the pick is for the Bengals.