The Bengals will win the Super Bowl, if…
Is it too late for season predictions? I hope not. There's no need to get specific here. I'm not going game-by-game, no statistical projections, or anything of the sort. I have a simple proclamation make with a stipulation attached. The Cincinnati Bengals will win Super Bowl 58, if their offensive line stays healthy until the […]
Is it too late for season predictions? I hope not.
There's no need to get specific here. I'm not going game-by-game, no statistical projections, or anything of the sort. I have a simple proclamation make with a stipulation attached.
The Cincinnati Bengals will win Super Bowl 58, if their offensive line stays healthy until the very end.
As someone who's followed the Bengals for his entire life, I've never truly believed the franchise would actually win the Super Bowl right before a new season began, not even last year when they were six months removed from barely losing the big game. I thought they'd make it past the first round of the playoffs, and anything else was up for debate.
Going back to February football two years in a row is extremely tough. Doing so twice in three seasons is a tall task as well, but this Bengals team is built for it in all the right ways. We can finally say that because of their o-line.
The addition of Orlando Brown Jr. at left tackle and subsequent shifting of Jonah Williams to right tackle gives the Bengals relative upgrades at both spots from last year. Brown is a better left tackle than Williams, and Williams should be a better right tackle than the version of La'el Collins the Bengals got last year.
Combine this with an interior trio of Ted Karras, Alex Cappa, and Cordell Volson, all with one year of playing together, and you have the best group of five blockers Cincinnati has had in recent memory.
But talent level only gets you so far if continuity doesn't last for 20+ weeks. This is where the stipulation of health comes into play.
The Bengals were down their right tackle and played their third right guard of the 2021 season during Super Bowl 56. The battered group proved to be not enough to hoist the Lombardi Trophy.
A year later, the Bengals looked to enter postseason play with a quality o-line that enjoyed health for the first 15 games of the season. Injuries to Collins, Cappa in the final two games through that hope in the trash, and losing Williams in the Wild Card round eventually sealed their fate in the AFC Championship game.
It's proven to be virtually impossible to win the Super Bowl when your offensive line is full of reserves. Seven of the last 10 winning teams have had their at least 80% of their Week 1/2 starting unit playing for the championship. All 10 have had at least 60% of their original group playing, but the odds of winning it all increase dramatically when the starters are out there.
When identifying what more the Bengals can do to finish the job, what stands out more than just having the right protection at the end? Joe Burrow and his receiving corps are second-to-none. Joe Mixon is more than passable with enough space to operate. Lou Anarumo's defense isn't going to get soften up any time soon.
This roster and coaching staff has grown and evolved together over the past few years, improving or at minimum staying the course after each offseason. They've accumulated primetime experience and have learned what it takes to win on the biggest stages.
They're ready to win it all, it just comes down to having enough up front to do it.
If the Bengals end up being as good as they're projected to be, and their offensive line stays intact for the duration of the playoffs, they will win the franchise's first-ever Super Bowl.
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