Latest power rankings are way too confident in the Bengals
The Cincinnati Bengals might as well be 95% of the Earth's oceans, because they're largely an unknown. They've looked terrible, great, and middling throughout their 3-3 start. Joe Burrow is playing at normal speed again, but the offense is still the least explosive in the league. The defense has come alive in two of their […]
The Cincinnati Bengals might as well be 95% of the Earth's oceans, because they're largely an unknown. They've looked terrible, great, and middling throughout their 3-3 start.
Joe Burrow is playing at normal speed again, but the offense is still the least explosive in the league. The defense has come alive in two of their wins, but has underwhelmed for most of the schedule thus far.
How does one characterize this team just six weeks into the season? Sports Illustrated's Conor Orr has them all the way up at No. 6 in his latest power rankings, and that feels considerably high.
Here's a fact: Nothing matters more than winning. The Bengals have done so in their last two games, including a close call against the now 3-2 Seattle Seahawks. They're one of seven teams currently riding a multi-game win streak of any kind. That's naturally going provide a boost in rankings.
But have the Bengals truly on the doorstep of entering top-five status two weeks after they were 1-3? It's a tough sell right now.
Offensively, Cincinnati still has more questions than answers. They've got little to show for in their passing game outside of Ja'Marr Chase. Honestly, they've got little to show for their entire offense outside of Chase, who's responsible for 556 of the team's 1,230 receiving yards. The rushing attack has almost entirely been Joe Mixon, who's essentially been 3.8 yards and a cloud of dust almost every time he's touched the ball. Schematic limitations and execution errors have each had a hand in the holding the offense back, sporting the 23rd spot in DVOA and 25th in EPA/play.
These problems wouldn't be as magnified if the defense wasn’t also wildly inconsistent. Cincinnati has been feasting off sacks from their defensive line, mostly by the hands of Trey Hendrickson, but a rise in tackling and communication issues have a group thought to be strengthened by continuity ranked 20th in DVOA and 18th in EPA/play.
What you've done so far is the bedrock of your evaluation, though where you're headed from here has weight as well.
The most promising aspect of the Bengals' potential success this year is Burrow's returning to form. He continued to show signs of that in the beginning of the Seahawks win despite his play falling off a bit for the final two-and-a-half quarters.
"Joe Burrow’s second touchdown pass (to Princeton’s Andrei Iosivas) was a great example of his rediscovered pocket mobility. The play also illustrated how scary the Bengals are when everything is clicking and Burrow can extend downs. Ja’Marr Chase flashed quickly on one side, freezing a Seattle defender. Burrow rolled to the opposite side of the field, and all of his receivers started breaking toward open space. If he has more than three seconds on a play, it’s over. Welcome back." – SI's Conor Orr
Considering what the Bengals looked like just two weeks ago at 1-3, standing at .500 with a seemingly healthy quarterback is leagues better than what was feared. But this is not a top-six team right now, not even a top-10 team really.
There's so much the Bengals have yet to prove before re-joining the elites.
Bengals: Continual offensive woes have OC Brian Callahan ‘fuming’
A candid statement that needed to be said.
