Will the Bengals new defense bring them wins?
Trysta Krick and Drew Dinsick break down the Bengals strong offense, the team's "retooling" of its weak defense, and whether those changes will post big wins for Cincinnati.
Video Transcript
Drew, the Bengals are one of the most interesting NFL teams this year because as they do every year, they have so much damn talent on the offensive side of the ball, and when Joe Burrow is healthy, you feel like they should be good enough to contend.
But their defense, year after year, has been trash.
Bottom four in yards allowed on the ground and through the air, DVOA bottom three.
They have spent all off-season supposedly retooling that.
The market's very optimistic.
Do you believe in the defense enough to see them get double-digit wins?
Yeah, the defense is actually a story that I think if you really wanna pinpoint when things turned around, it was mid-season last year.
They were over the first half of the season, really through week 10, it was not just the worst defense in football, it was, like, historically bad.
But they did turn things around.
If you look at the sample of the last half of the season, this was not necessarily just opponent adjustments.
They played the Ravens twice, they played the Bills, they played the Patriots.
They played some good teams, but it was about a ha- you know, a, a 50th percentile defense, about the same as the Steelers.
I really think the story is Al Golden took him a long time to kind of get his feet under him as far as how to coordinate an NFL quality defense.
But I think the signal is there that he did solve it in the back half of the season.
Now, you add Dexter Lawrence to the mix, who, in my opinion, is still, at the top of his game.
He is a, a no doubt difference maker, particularly in terms of getting interior pressure, and I think this is gonna be at least, at least a league average defense.
Now, if Joe Burrow and Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins all are healthy for a full, 17 game season, I think the Bengals make this win total going away.
Like, this could ultimately be a team that is more like competing for AFC North one seed, if they do hit their ceiling on the offensive side of the ball.
Ultimately, their pursuit of a Super Bowl win, really just a return to the Super Bowl since 2021 season, really kind of relies on Joe Burrow staying healthy.
That's a gamble so, I'm more inclined to kind of, again, shoot for some serious upside with this Bengals team than just take the win total over.
I'm projecting them as an 11 win team, but I definitely do see the ceiling where this could ultimately be your Super Bowl representative for the AFC.
