2011 SB Nation NFL Mock Draft: Round 2, Pick 35

Our annual 2011 NFL Mock Draft, with picks made by each of SB Nation’s NFL team bloggers, is in full swing. The latest pick in to the podium: the Cincinnati Bengals, at No. 35 overall.

Josh Kirkendall of CincyJungle.com explains the choice, and our own Dan Kadar reacts to it, after the jump. Make sure you’re grading this pick for the Bengals, and checking out Cincy Jungle for all of your Bengals needs.

Josh Kirkendall explains: After selecting a wide receiver in the first round, the Cincinnati Bengals need a quarterback to throw him the football. Typically we’d suggest picking the quarterback before the wide receiver, but recently we’ve caught ourselves making “chicken before the egg” arguments, believing that a good quarterback needs a good receiver; alternatively a good receiver is only as good as his quarterback. Right?

Regardless, the Bengals need a quarterback while Carson Palmer lives luxuriously in the retirement phase of his career while his younger, and less talented, brother suddenly becomes the team’s top quarterback. Dalton, according to many experts, is believed to be a quarterback that can run the West Coast offense - a system implemented this off-season with the hiring of Jay Gruden as the team’s offensive coordinator.

Dan Kadar reacts: This is certainly early for Dalton. It just seems like he doesn’t have the athletic upside to be anything more than a game manager in the NFL. It’s not a bad pick in the sense that this could realistically happen. With the free agent uncertainty going on, quarterbacks are going to get overdrafted this year. Dalton going 35th would perfectly illustrate that.