Cincinnati has been somewhat of a rollercoaster the last
handful of seasons. They were of course
a bottom-barrel team before they drafted immensely talented QB Joe Burrow. The team that once had one of the best
offenses in the league (2005-2006) led by QB Carson Palmer along with dangerous
weapons such as sure-handed WR T.J Houshmandzadeh alongside one of the most
exciting and vocal players on & off the field in Chad “OchoCinco” Johnson,
in many people’s eyes, was some of the best football the Bengals fans have ever
seen. The chemistry between the duo
wideouts not only with each other but also with their passer looked almost
unmatched at times during their heyday.
To speak a little more on the chemistry between T.J. and Chad they were
also college teammates at Oregon State for a year (2000) before both being
drafted by the Bengals. Unfortunately
for the city of Cincinnati and their fanbase, the Bengals Super Bowl hopes were
shattered after losing Carson Palmer to a freak injury not even a whole quarter
into their Wild Card Playoff game against none other than their division foe
the Pittsburgh Steelers. Sadly, Carson
Palmer was carted off the field after suffering a torn ACL on only their second
offensive play. Palmer completed a
66-yard pass to their then up-in-coming third WR Chris Henry. Talk about cursed, this team went threw it
for a very long time.
After
that season the Bengals never seemed to get back to their 2005 form and never
made another playoff appearance with that same core group of men. After the 2008 season, T.J. left for Seattle
and Carson ended up leaving after 2010 when he went to the Raiders. Chad along with Carson made it to the
wildcard round of the playoffs one more time before Palmer’s departure in 2010
but lost the game. Chad was also sent
packing after the 2010 season. Chad was
never the same after his time with Cincinnati though nor were the Bengals. The 2011 season started with the Bengals
looking to replace long-time impressive QB Carson Palmer when they decided to
draft TCU’s former guy Andy Dalton.
Dalton didn’t achieve as much as the Bengals would’ve liked, he didn’t
win them a championship, in fact, they never won a playoff game with him
either. What Dalton did accomplish was
taking Cincy to five consecutive playoff appearances even if it was a one-and-done carousel on repeat for five years.
More impressive was the fact that Dalton managed this without the help
of Superstar WR Chad Johnson. They did
wind up drafting their own new Star pass catcher A.J. Green, but he wasn’t Chad.
Now for over 30 years, the Bengals fans had been largely let down with no end in
sight to all the misery and misfortune over that period. 2020 marked a new era with people showing
loud cries of hope with a new signal caller that may be able to bring them back
to a Super Bowl for the first time since 1989.
This new QB showed in college how good he can really be so when Cincy
opted to take Joe Burrow 1st overall in the 2020 draft it left fans
proud to be a Bengals fan. The hype of
Burrow and his high football IQ showed his rookie season as he only played 10
games but showed his precision and ability to make smart decisions and not turn
the ball over. In Burrow’s second season, he
went on to win 10 games and earned the Bengals a playoff spot. He was able to do something for this
franchise that no other QB had done in the previous 30 seasons which was win a
postseason game. Burrow won them 3
playoff games, then took them all the way to a Super Bowl, and on the way there
he beat the best QB the league has seen since Brady in Patrick Mahomes (3x
Super Bowl winner). No other QB has been
able to have success against Mahomes other than Joe. The only issue here is that Burrow and the
Bengals ran into quite possibly the only team in the league that was hungrier
than them that year. Stafford and the
Rams won 23-20 in his very first season in Los Angeles in what was a home game
for the Rams at SoFi Stadium.
The
Bengals are coming off a down year as they missed the playoffs for the first
year since Joe has been their starter.
He had an injury to his throwing wrist last season and couldn’t recover
within the season. There is no way to
predict what will happen shortly for this franchise, but in the
short term, more specifically this season.
As of right now the Bengals still currently have two extremely good
weapons on the outside for their QB to look for in the passing game, one of
which is a previous college teammate of Burrow in Ja’Marr Chase, and the other
top talent is Tee Higgins. With the
season about to start, the Bengals are staring at 2 of the league’s top 20 WRs that are on their roster and are both in need of a new deal. It is believed by some that Tee Higgins may be getting ready to lace up his cleats for the last year in Cincy and they might
be right, given that nothing crazy happens with Chase’s situation. Speaking of Chase, on the other hand, he is
seeking a huge contract, and I don’t think anyone can imagine that Cincinnati
lets him walk. If you have a strong
rapport like that of Burrow and Chase you don’t mess with that, especially given
the fact that they also spent time together at LSU, they have such great chemistry,
and it shows. Ja’Marr is a stellar
player and outside of the likes of fellow WRs Tyreek Hill, Justin Jefferson,
& Amon-Ra St. Brown, Ja’Marr Chase is probably the only other WR that is on
that same level of talent right now.
In
my opinion, this team will be fine outside of the simple fact that they are
currently in what is viewed as probably the most difficult division in all of
football. Lamar Jackson and the
Baltimore Ravens are not showing any signs of regression anytime soon, as Lamar
is coming off his second MVP season. His
Ravens barely lost to the Kansas City Chiefs at home in the AFC Championship
game. The Browns looked like they were
also a Super Bowl contender with a top-five defense last year and accomplished
big things with Joe Flacco, who came off the couch to take them all the way to
the wildcard round of the playoffs. I
don’t think I really need to say a lot about the Pittsburgh Steelers here
except for defense, defense, defense, oh yeah, and Mike Tomlin. Tomlin has never had a losing season in his
17 seasons as the Steelers HC and they brought in two new QBs, young & raw
talent, but still unproven player Justin Fields plus the reliable, one-time
Super Bowl winning veteran Russell Wilson.
This shows you just how tough of a division the AFC North really is. Will the Bengals again rise to the top or
will this Ravens team reclaim their successes of last season?
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