Nearly one year ago in the wake of a transcendent draft that would set off an improbable run to the Super Bowl, scout Andrew Johnson walked down the hall to director of player personnel Duke Tobin.

He cut up 10 plays on a prospect for next year he really liked and wanted to make sure his boss took a look.

The prospect’s name was Daxton Hill.

This marked the hopeful beginning.

Fast forward through Johnson watching every snap of Hill’s career on defense and special teams, making two school visits in the fall, two live games, attending his pro day, an in-depth, hourlong conversation the day after he declared, another round of communication after the combine, then strategically going silent in April for the sake of not being so obvious.

He preached the insight gained about every exhaustive detail gathered of Hill’s life, background, demeanor, maturity, versatility and play style to everyone in the building who would listen.

“I have said this in every round of meetings that we have been in: Dax was my favorite prospect in the draft,” Johnson said.

Johnson’s emotions spiked with five spots left before the Bengals picked at 31 last Thursday.

This marked the tense conclusion.

New England and Kansas City were in front of them and needed defensive backs.

Hill’s name sat there, tempting. Johnson sat there, sweating.

“I was a nervous wreck in the picks leading up to him,” he said.

The Patriots surprisingly selected guard Cole Strange and Kansas City opted for defensive lineman George Karlaftis.

The Bengals select Dax Hill, defensive back, Michigan.

“I’ll be honest with you, going into the day I was fully convinced, there’s no way,” Johnson said. “It’s not going to happen. In the scouting process, you fall in love with a few prospects every year and it seems like you never end up with them. You always kind of end up with the ones, ‘Oh, so we are taking him? OK.’ I was welling up with tears as Kansas City took Karlaftis.”

The board fell their way.

What nobody could have known in the blur of enthusiastic handshakes and back-patting was the fortuitous first night of this unique Bengals draft would not be a sign of things to come.

The board would not fall their way in the coming days. They would see it “decimated,” make out-of-character trades that made them cringe and bet on calculated grunt work uncovering the core of what the Bengals were looking for to stay ahead of the curve.

The path to the Bengals’ 2022 haul was surprising and frustrating, unorthodox and challenging, exhilarating and calculated.

More than that, what came after the first night would elicit a very different reaction from Tobin.

“It precipitated my worst nightmare,” he said.

Dreams ➡ Reality 📞 The moment @daxhill5 got the call.#RuleTheDraft | #RuleTheJungle

Watch Rounds 2-3 at 7:00 PM ET on NFL Network pic.twitter.com/wdGn957JTp

— Cincinnati Bengals (@Bengals) April 29, 2022

In the video of Zac Taylor making the call to Hill after his selection, Johnson became the low-key star with his visceral reaction of excitement.

Yes, it was the first time a guy he loved to that degree ended up on the team, but this wasn’t a hard sell inside the building.

These scouts do the leg work to set the table for an organizational direction. Taylor cut off the idea of this being Johnson’s first first-round pick.

“It’s our first-rounder,” the head coach said. “But yeah, it’s good when guys have conviction on players, and certainly we all have conviction on Dax.”

Johnson wasn’t shy about his opinion, but what pushed Hill up what they call the “Bengals Rank” was what remained on the paper without the emotion. Tobin does his best to take emotion out of it and focus on a unanimous evaluation.

“We really had consensus on the guy across the board,” said director of college scouting Mike Potts, who saw Hill live during training camp at Michigan. “When that’s the case, it’s an easy selection.”

If any injury occurs to Jessie Bates, Vonn Bell or Mike Hilton, Hill’s able to bring a top-tier starter level of play to all three positions. And that could even go for the outside corner spot. Hill’s athletic profile and mental aptitude suggest he could make that transition.

Bengals director of pro scouting Steven Radicevic sees that as a real possibility.

“I think he’s going to be really good at all three spots if that’s where you want to use him,” Radicevic said. “He’s got the size, speed, arm length to play outside at corner. Man-cover skills for slot and tight end-type players and range to play free safety. I think he can excel at all three spots.”

In a copycat league, the league is copying the Bengals. Investment in and overdrafting of receivers like the Bengals’ dynamic trio will dictate a defensive reaction. A deep, fast, versatile defensive back group can rattle even the best of quarterbacks — like Patrick Mahomes in the AFC Championship — and offer glimpses of the counterattack of the next wave of NFL schematics.

In some respect, the Bengals played the longest season in NFL history and were plucking multiple defensive backs off the waiver wire to survive midseason. That plight wasn’t forgotten.

Offensively, they torched overmatched teams that ran out of defensive back answers down the stretch, as Baltimore can attest. For those reasons, they see players like Hill as gold in the NFL’s crystal ball.

“Our scouts are constantly talking about that,” Potts said. “We are a really tightknit group. We want to stay ahead of the curve. We don’t want to be playing catch up. We don’t want to say this is the trend and we have to react. We want to stay ahead of that.”

We know one staffer who won’t disagree.

“I’ve never had a player in my career that I spent more time on than him,” Johnson said. “There is no miss with Dax, in my opinion.”

Tobin doesn’t name the rounds or pick numbers when he talks about making draft-day trades.

He isn’t trading away a fourth-rounder. He’s giving up Geno Atkins.

He isn’t dealing a fifth. That’s Marvin Jones.

That wasn’t just a throwaway seventh. That was T.J. Houshmandzadeh.

There’s a reason that before this year Tobin and the Bengals had only traded up at any point in the draft four times in the last 20 years. They had not gone up in the first or second round since Ki-Jana Carter in 1995.

Yet, here was Tobin, giving up a sixth-round pick — or perhaps we should refer to it as 2021 sixth-rounder Chris Evans — to move up just three spots in the second.

Cincinnati’s year of ending droughts from last century continued.

“Not my style,” Tobin said, bluntly. “I like those picks. I feel so comfortable that our guys and the way we got our board ranked, we can find guys in any round. And you are giving up a chance on a Marv Jones or T.J. Houshmandzadeh or a Geno Atkins. Guys that can really help you. Not that you always get that but you are giving up the opportunity for that. It’s something I cringe about. But the situations dictate action. We felt like the situation this year dictated a little action on our part.”

The situation was partly a roster flush with starters and few glaring holes coming off the Super Bowl. It was mostly what happened in the second round.

“The second round was certainly a spot where we got picked over,” Potts said. “It was something like we were eight picks away and there was probably roughly five guys we felt really good about at that point. Then maybe four of those next five guys go in the next five picks. You are like, ‘Oh, crap, this is not breaking our way the way it did the first round.'”

Consider the top five positions the Bengals were targeting in this draft for immediate competition and depth: Guard, defensive line, defensive back, wide receiver, tight end. Then imagine the reactions as the board goes off as it did.

“We felt like we were going to drop down a level,” Tobin said. “We didn’t want to drop down a level in talent if we sat and waited. Now, maybe those guys would have lingered to us. We didn’t think there was a great chance. We thought less than half a chance of getting to us. We didn’t want to sit there picking from a group that’s a little less. So we did what we did.”

They did what they did because of the conviction on Nebraska’s Cam Taylor-Britt.

Area scout Christian Sarkisian and the rest of the Bengals staff know what Taylor and Tobin want. They want players who love football, love practices, love the process, love getting the game plan. They want cultural fits.

He knew they’d want Taylor-Britt.

“The first time I saw him was the first time I went through Nebraska during camp,” Sarkisian said. “Once I came back from the early camp visits, he was far and away the most energetic practice player I had come across.”

Sarkisian worked the room. Bengals wide receivers coach Troy Walters overlapped two years in Nebraska. Walters loved him. He sought out receiver Stanley Morgan, a favorite teammate of the entire staff as well as Joe Burrow for his attitude every day. Morgan set the example Taylor-Britt followed for the Cornhuskers.

“Stanley loved the kid,” Sarkisian said. “Talking about how tough he was, how strong and hard-working, how competitive. Called the kid an absolute dog in practice. I agreed with that from what I had seen.”

Coaches at other schools called him the best defensive back on that side of the conference. Sarkisian saw the leadership, swagger and natural ball skills that produced six picks and 24 pass breakups the last three years to go with a check mark next to every physical benchmark you could want.

“The thing that sticks out with him is just the physical play, the physicality he brings,” Radicivec said. “He’s going to fit the DB room well with the guys we have been trying to bring in there the last couple years.”

All this makes the reasons he was still available in the late second less daunting. The Athletic’s Dane Brugler mentioned transition skills leaving Taylor-Britt out of position in coverage and also causing missed tackles.

“The things that need to be correctable are easily correctable,” Sarkisian said, pointing out that Taylor-Britt played about every defensive back position plus special teams at Nebraska. “The kid affects the game no matter where he is at on the field. That was the takeaway moment. The kid has the mental versatility and athletic profile, production to back up every time he is on the field he is making plays.”

Despite having to do the one thing Tobin never wants to do, they acquired the desired talent at pick No. 60. But the plucking of other beloved prospects didn’t come to an end.

The third round proved more of the same.

“It’s funny because everybody was saying how unpredictable this draft was (going to be) and I thought the same thing,” Potts said. “But when we were looking at our draft board on draft day it was a lot more predictable than we thought it was going to be with the way our board just got decimated in the first two-three rounds.”

The leaguewide consensus was more in tune with the Bengals consensus than in most years.

“There are years you are crossing guys off the fifth-sixth round in rounds 2 or 3,” Radicevic said. “There really wasn’t much of that going on this year. It was a little bit frustrating at times. It ended up working out we got players in each round we had high grades on consistently.”

Left for the Bengals in the third round was Florida defensive lineman Zachary Carter. He wasn’t the most high-profile player available, and many pundits graded him down the board, but the Bengals didn’t and entered the weekend looking for pass rush. Specifically, looking for interior pass rush. They targeted players with a hybrid size-speed skill set to offer versatility at edge and 3-technique for defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo.

Carter was one of the last impact players of the type left standing.

“Maybe if there were five guys we felt good about we would have said hey, let’s roll the dice, maybe he’ll be there a round later,” Potts said. “We just didn’t think it was worth the risk. We didn’t feel strongly enough they would be.”

At least, not one with the potential they saw in Carter.

“You really just see the upside with him,” Radicevic said.

He also saw twitch and quickness of the snap that led to 13 sacks and 20.5 tackles for loss the past two seasons playing in the SEC. Potts, who also has a focus on the SEC as a coverage area, sees even more.

“Carter was 282 (pounds) at the combine,” Potts said. “From our scouts, myself included, that went through there, he’s been up at 290. We think he can add some weight. We think he can potentially be a three-down player as a 3-technique. But for now, it’s a matter of where Lou sees him and wants to play him on run downs. He definitely can play on the edge and set an edge and play the run for sure and give some pass rush off the edge as well.”

When a player holds his draft party inside a massive warehouse that looks like an airplane hangar stuffed with excavation equipment, there’s a certain personality a team knows it is selecting.

The Bengals knew exactly what they were getting with North Dakota State offensive lineman Cordell Volson. They were drafting an attitude, work ethic and dedication that would get the most out of his talent.

Merely turning on the tape or comparing 40 times might have landed Volson as a sixth-round projection as he was for Brugler. Or the same grade as line guru Brandon Thorn, who pointed out “marginal athletic ability and movement skills.”

“You are talking about a kid from a small town in North Dakota of less than 50 people,” Sarkisian said. “His family owns a heavy machinery company that works on railroads and farm equipment. When out there in rural North Dakota when one of those big trains come off the tracks, they call the Volsons. Cordell and his two younger brothers and older brother — who won the FCS Rimington (Trophy) in 2018 — those four get out there and lift up the train, fix the tracks and put the train back on the tracks.”

You could say @Volson23 is pretty excited to be part of the @Bengals #ProBison

🎥 @Waege70 pic.twitter.com/Bu0mYCF5RS

— NDSU Football (@NDSUfootball) April 30, 2022

Despite the imminent construction of the new practice bubble on the other side of the tracks adjacent to the downtown practice fields, Volson’s days of moving trains are over. He’ll be asked to move people.

“That’s what he majors in,” Sarkisian said.

Much of his degree is rooted in finishing and a will to win. He really caught the eye of the rest of the personnel staff during one-on-ones of the East-West Shrine Game.

The Bengals invested a ton of time and research into this side of the offensive line equation this year, specifically coming off a year when the will was lacking in second-round draft pick Jackson Carman.

The NFL conducts what’s called a PAT test at the combine that measures from one to 10 a score about being a good teammate, work ethic, cognition, etc. This isn’t the Wonderlic. It arrived about 10 years ago and is meant to pinpoint those who love the process of football. A track record of offensive linemen who have scored well on this test exists. It shows a significant correlation to success among picks who score high. Notably, that includes former Humboldt State third-round pick Bengals free-agency focus Alex Cappa.

The test is an easy-to-understand number put on a board to quantify what Sarkisian worked on the scouting grind at NDSU.

Volson scored at the top of the class, which wasn’t a surprise, but rather confirmation of the evaluation.

“He’s a multi-time captain,” Sarkisian said. “He got votes from all 116 teammates. His old offensive line coach told me he reminds him of a puppy dog every day he’s out on the practice field. That’s how much he loves running out to practice. The guy is a tone-setter. He will get in teammates’ faces if they don’t match his effort even in their offseason program. He’s a sponge in the meeting room. A lot of these draft guys, once they come out, they will leave the college town and go to Dallas or somewhere in Florida and start living it up a little bit. This kid stayed in Fargo and helped coach some spring practices. The only thing the kid loves more than football is the Bison.”

If ever wanting a case study on traits versus attitude in the NFL, the Bengals think the self-dubbed “dirty, nasty, stinky” Volson could be the perfect test case.

“How much smarter, more intelligent, tougher, more competitive, and more intrinsically motived can this guy get, right?” Sarkisian said.

Radicevic said the calls were calm. The room wasn’t chaotic. Yet, as the fifth round unfolded and the Bengals had Toledo safety Tycen Anderson so far above any other prospect on their board, they knew it was time to do what they desperately try to avoid yet again.

Tobin put down his frustration and picked up the phone to move eight spots and give up a seventh-round pick to ensure they got a guy they considered rounds earlier.

The board decimation struck again.

“We would hope people wouldn’t go off our board as much as they did,” Tobin said. “That didn’t happen. It precipitated my worst nightmare of having to give up picks to go get guys.”

In the end, they felt it was worth it for a value like Anderson. Johnson was the Toledo-area scout and instantly liked what he saw and heard about the Rockets defensive booster.

“Outstanding human being,” Johnson said. “Three-time captain, face of the program, unquestioned leader of the team. He’s tough and got the demeanor to play special teams for us early in his career. We see him as somebody who can ascend into a potential starter someday. He’s got it in his body to play both free and strong safety because he is so big and fast.”

When the personnel staff found interest in Anderson, they asked safeties coach Robert Livingston to head up to his pro day. Livingston didn’t just attend, he also ran the defensive back drills.

Johnson thought Anderson would go in the third round, but the drop to the third day likely connected to a less productive final season that was affected directly by injuries. The Bengals not going in earlier on Anderson, one of Johnson’s favorite later prospects, was partially connected to Johnson’s top one.

“Part of the reason we shied away from him was we already took Dax Hill,” Potts said. “We just thought the value there (in the fifth) was too much to risk him.”

From there the Bengals had to wait 86 picks to select again. They took the first of what should be three dips into the water near Myrtle Beach, S.C., with Coastal Carolina edge rusher Jeffrey Gunter. They have also agreed to terms with wide receiver Jaivon Heiligh and running back Shermari Jones.

Area scout Trey Brown had the upstart Chanticleers, who broke out with a 22-3 record over the past two seasons. After a trip down there, he made a call back to Potts that he needed to add a stop to his regular route through the South.

“I changed some things in my schedule to get down there as well,” Potts said. “It’s not the easiest place to get to when you are working at other schools. But when you got four high-level guys our scouts like it is my responsibility to get an additional look on a lot of guys in that case where we didn’t initially have them on our schedule for scouts going through there. But I am glad I went down there and Trey did a great job scouting those guys.”

The middle of the draft process featured the personnel staff finding a conference room in the team’s Super Bowl hotel at UCLA to serve as their makeshift offices for breaking down tape and writing reports.

It ended with a draft featuring the fewest players picked since 2002 and giving away two more selections. They didn’t pick a single player who touches the ball on offense and broke a streak of eight consecutive top-50 picks on the offensive side of the ball.

Building the future of the defense ruled the day, and they now have three new members of a secondary that was already returning every starter from the Super Bowl.

They picked players they were excited about. Emotions ran the gamut. Meanwhile, Tobin did as he always tries to do. He took the emotion out and added the latest wave to one of the league’s deepest, most well-rounded rosters.

“The emotion can drive decisions maybe that shouldn’t be driven,” Tobin said. “We work hard to take the emotion out of our evaluations and just put the evaluation part down. When you select a guy, you internalize, ‘Wow, we did a lot on him,’ but in reality, we did a lot on 400 other guys that aren’t coming to the Cincinnati Bengals. Without that reference point, you don’t know that these are the six guys you wanted at the time you were selected. The stories regaling about this and that is really just a thorough grind that takes you to the best choice when you are on the board. It’s fun to talk about the guys you get. There’s a lot of guys that are fun to talk about that we didn’t get. And just as much work went into them and just as much passion went into those reports as the ones that we took.”

That reasoned, logical approach allowed the Bengals to pivot and surprise their way through an unusual three days for the franchise. It eventually landed right where it hoped.

“To put emphasis on defense with how solid our offense is and pieces we added there in free agency,” Johnson said, “the people in here, coaches, scouts, front office, you can’t feel much better than you can about your team right now.”

(Top photo of Daxton Hill and Zac Taylor: Jeff Dean / Associated Press)