Bengals’ 2-0 start makes them significantly more dangerous with their key advantage over the rest of the NFL
It’s only been two weeks, but it’s hard to not be excited about what the Cincinnati Bengals can accomplish this season when factoring in their remaining strength of schedule.
It’s only been two weeks, but it’s hard to not be excited about what the Cincinnati Bengals can accomplish this season.
The Bengals know what it takes to overcome a slow start. They made the AFC Championship Game after starting 0-2 in 2022. The 2025 season saw Cincinnati’s first 2-0 start under Zac Taylor, but the club played without quarterback Joe Burrow the following nine games.
This year is different. The Bengals are 2-0 once more, but Burrow is healthy, the defense is cooking with gas, and going far this year seems possible.
This is especially the case considering what their next 15 games look like compared to the rest of the NFL.
Bengals have the easiest remaining strength of schedule in the NFL
The first two weeks of the season for Cincinnati was circled as a difficult section of its schedule. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Houston Texans each offered hurdles, but the Bengals got through both of them unscathed.
And everything looks wide-open from here on out.
Ben Baldwin’s strength of schedule metric, which takes the “average remaining opponent win % versus a league average team on a neutral field,” gives Cincinnati the easiest remaining schedule in the league.
The Bengals do have the currently undefeated Kansas City Chiefs on their schedule, but every other opponent has already lost at least one game and has looked vulnerable.
This was also the expectation heading into the year.
Known advantage has grown into something more
Before the schedule was even revealed, Cincinnati boasted one of the easiest schedules in the league when looking at projected win totals.
A mere two weeks of on-field data haven’t changed those projections too much.
The league-wide landscape will look different in January compared to Week 2. Teams that have stumbled out of the gates will gain their footing. Going 2-0 doesn’t lock in a playoff spot, though it’s been the case for 77.6% of those teams since 2020.
The Bengals themselves are only thinking about the Sunday ahead, but there’s a real case for them ending up with one of the best, if not be best record, in the NFL by season’s end.
A 2-0 start only makes them more dangerous to achieve that.
