Finally, a team in the AFC North that doesn’t want to make me gouge my eyes out with a seraded blade when I watch their offense. For years, the Bengals absolutely fit that description but they’ve managed to flip the script in recent times. I give 90% of the credit to the new sheriff Joe Sheisty. After his 2019 LSU season we knew he was destined for greatness and he hasn’t disappointed. Then throw in JaMarr Chase to the mix (did you know they were teammates in college)? Dayyummm you’ve got a real fantasy football factory going on in Cincy. I even forgot to mention Tee Higgins and famous respecter of women, Joe Mixon. Let’s see how #WhoDey nation looks in 2023.
I already went over the electric weapons the Bengals deploy on offense. JaMarr Chase has already cemented himself as one of the best WRs in the league in just 2 seasons. It sucks he got hurt last year because I would’ve liked to have seen if he could improve on his NFL rookie receiving record. He’s so good he even has a solid case to be the first overall pick in fantasy football this year, and that’s high praise. Opposite him is former Dabo Clemson Tiger, Tee Higgins. This guy really gets slept on simply because of how good JaMarr ended up being. I don’t know how to define “sleeping on” right now because everyone knows he’s good, but if we were doing a rankings I think he’s a lot closer to 10 than 20. They’ve also done a solid job improving their offensive line in the last year. They stole La’el Colins from the Cowboys so fuck them for that. It doesn’t seem like Joe Mixon is gonna end up leaving this offseason so I’m sure the running attack will be pretty much the same this year. Honestly I guess the whole offense is gonna be the same pending any improvements from their stars. If Joe and JaMarr and Tee somehow manage to level up again then we’re gonna be in some serious fucking trouble. The AFC is already loaded with great offenses the last thing we need is any of them getting better.
The Bengals defense remains a mystery to me. If you put a gun to my head I’m not sure I could name 2 players from that unit. Yet (somehow) they manage to be a strong defense without any superstars. I mean if the best pass rusher you have is Trey Hendrickson you wouldn’t expect anything special on that side of the ball. Another amazing mystery is how they played 10x better in the 2nd half of games last season. Their defensive coordinator became the king of “halftime adjustments” last year even though I’m pretty sure that doesn’t even mean anything anymore. People act like teams are really changing their entire gameplan in the 12 minutes they have for halftime. Take out at least 5 of those for getting in and out of the locker room and taking care of other business. Adjustments is now just another meaningless word on NFL Twitter (sorry, NFL ‘X’). I guess there’s a chance these guys just got lucky and are complete frauds. I’ll be looking forward to telling Bengals fans that on my burner account soon.
I am officially predicting the Bengals to repeat as AFC North champions. The only competition in my mind is the Ravens, but I can’t bet on what I haven’t seen yet. The Bengals have by far the best weapons in the division, maybe even the best weapons in the entire AFC/NFL. It’s hard to go against that in 2023 when offensive powered teams dominate the league. The only thing holding this team back is that they’re still the Bengals. Joe Burrow has almost managed to turn that reputation around but I’d say the threshold should be at least 5 years to reverse a curse. The tides are definitely turning in their favor, but let’s see one more succesful season without some dumb shit happening before we put it in writing. Congrats to the Bengals fans, I have crowned you division champs once again (curse not withstanding).
2023 Record: 13-4
1st Place in AFC North
The Armchair Experts 
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