THE STORY of the Cincinnati Bengals has resonated with David Noble this summer.
As one of the NFL's smallest market teams, the Bengals and their remarkable worst-to-first turnaround on their way to the franchise's third ever Super Bowl appearance has provided the North Melbourne coach with an unlikely inspiration.
A keen NFL fan and an avid San Francisco 49ers supporter, Noble has kept a watchful eye over the Bengals' playoff run over the last month and can see how similarities could be drawn between the up-and-coming side and his own young and exciting group.
Joe Burrow, the team's star second-year quarterback, was the first selection in the 2020 NFL Draft and made his way to Cincinnati after the struggling side finished dead last with a dismal 2-14 record the season prior.
Last year, North Melbourne 'won' its first ever wooden spoon courtesy of its 4-1-17 record but finished the season with optimism thanks to the arrival of the draft's No.1 selection Jason Horne-Francis.
Just two years on from drafting Burrow, he has led the Bengals to their first playoff qualification in six years, their first playoff victory in 31 years and now their first Super Bowl appearance in 33 years. Maybe, just maybe, the team's first ever Super Bowl win awaits on February 14.
The incredible playoff run has provided Noble and North Melbourne's recruiting team with food for thought and has left them pondering the question: can you apply Cincinnati's rapid change in fortunes to an AFL context?
Like the Bengals had done prior to recruiting Burrow, the Kangaroos had also spent multiple years investing heavily in the draft before getting Horne-Francis through the doors. In fact, since choosing Jy Simpkin with pick No.12 in 2016, the club has used six selections inside six years on top-13 picks.
North Melbourne has complemented successive draft hands with what it describes as a "ruthless" edge in the trade and free agency space, best evidenced by its plan to target the recently delisted Hugh Greenwood from Gold Coast last November.
You can also point to the addition of free agent Aidan Corr, a cut-price deal for Collingwood's former NAB AFL Rising Star winner Jaidyn Stephenson and a move for highly rated Richmond ruckman Callum Coleman-Jones within that.
It mimics the Bengals – to a significantly lesser financial degree – who spent over $100 million USD dishing out contracts to free agent recruits Trey Hendrickson, Chidobe Awuzie and Mike Hilton after drafting Burrow.
For Noble, now all that's left to consider is whether the speed of North Melbourne's rebuild can be just as extreme as Cincinnati's. But, having overseen Brisbane's rise from a bottom-place finish in 2017 to a top-four berth in 2019 as its head of football, he knows such an exciting turnaround is possible.
"It's quicker than I think we used to be able to," Noble told AFL.com.au in an exclusive interview at Arden Street last week.
"That's what we've talked about. I think AFL clubs are becoming better at identifying specific holes and the avenues now. We've got a number of different mechanisms and tools that we can use to fill those gaps as we're going through the season.
"I think five, six, seven years ago … we can do it quicker than what we did back then. I don't know how quick we're going to do it. We know we've got to build it correctly and pace it reasonably slowly. But once it gets going and guys are able to learn what that top-end looks like and are able to perform under pressure, that builds belief and then … who knows?"
Ironically for North Melbourne, there has hardly been more optimism surrounding the club despite its finish at the bottom of last season's AFL ladder. Horne-Francis, like Burrow, has long been viewed as a potentially transformational talent.
He joins fellow prospects like Simpkin, Luke Davies-Uniacke, Tarryn Thomas, Will Phillips, Tom Powell and Jaidyn Stephenson at Arden Street – all of whom are 23 years of age or younger – in a strong core that is expected to take the club into the future.
It's also a list that has done a fair portion of the heavy lifting already. The club has dished out 11 AFL debuts in the last two seasons and is bound to hand out more this year, with Horne-Francis firming for round one and with fellow draftee Josh Goater also impressing across half-back over the summer.
Last year, the Kangaroos overcame a difficult start to Noble's tenure – recording just one victory from their first 13 games, while losing by an average margin of 47.6 points during that period – to finish the campaign strongly.
Three victories in five weeks just after the bye coincided with a six-week education block that had been put in place by Noble and his coaching staff, all with the view of fast-tracking the club's rebuild in mind. The Kangaroos hope that will reap further benefits into the upcoming campaign.
"We started (the 2021 season) with a few blokes not being in the team, but that gave us an advantage with our draftees from last year and the year before to get ahead in their growth and their development," Noble said.
"We think that was a really good piece. Things started to settle, we got some better data and when we got to the halfway mark we knew that we could stop through that break for the bye.
"We did a really big education piece in that next six weeks, which is probably a bit unusual. We went really hard on educating our players on roles and game plan. It was a bit more around the structures and how we wanted the ball to flow. To their credit, they went to work really hard.
"I think we've grown and developed a really safe environment and a really bubbly environment. I think if you came down here at any point during the year, you couldn't tell where we were on the ladder. For us, it wasn't about that. It was about us getting better every day and making sure we have a really strong growth mindset."
North Melbourne, rightfully, is putting no ceiling on what it can achieve as it forges ahead with its talented list. But in terms of setting expectations for the upcoming season, Noble has a unique approach to how he will measure the team's growth.
"I look at it a little bit differently," Noble said.
"I don't think we're in a spot where we'll go 'eight or ten wins is right'. If it gets to that point, that's great. But I think we're in a space more around how we play against the groups that we're around and how we go against the top groups and the middle and the bottom groups.
"We want to beat more of the teams around where we are and, as you transition up the ladder, you want to be close enough to that next group and then you want to be able to challenge the top as you go through and get better.
"We've got to remember, we've got the second or third youngest list. They've got a lot to learn. We might be able to jump out of the box and play well for two or three quarters, but then we have to learn how to grind out that win in the last quarter or the last half. I think we'll be better at that."
All the while, North Melbourne wants to make its journey as exciting as possible. Just like the Bengals have built around a young, talented offensive group featuring Burrow and his star rookie wide receiver Ja'Marr Chase, the Kangaroos have attacking football at the forefront of their vision for the future.
"We want to attack," Noble said.
"I know we got opened up a little bit early on when we came through the corridor, but we want to attack. We want to be a good, contested team, because that's what finals are about, and then we've got to defend way better.
"But from our fans' perspective, we want to use our speed, our weapons and kick goals. We want our fans to come and celebrate that and enjoy that journey with us."
