There is only one more Sunday without Bengals football. Let that little savory tidbit tickle your taste buds for a moment. OK, now we can proceed with examining how the Cincinnati Football Club should fare in 2026, a crucial crossroads season for this era of Joe Burrow and Zac Taylor, now in Year 7 together. Remember: No NFL QB/head coach combo has ever won their first title together after Year 5.
As we detailed two weeks ago, and you all surely know by now, the remaking of the defense that was so putrid in 2024 and 2025 has gotten rave reviews thus far in the summer. The addition of Dexter Lawrence in the middle of the line has, to this point, had the desired effect. The Bengals also seem to possess far more depth than usual on both sides of the ball, as shown by the first unbeaten preseason in Taylor’s eight years at the helm. Multiple late-round picks, from lineman Brian Parker (currently on injured reserve) to D-tackle/Midshipman Landon Robinson to tight end Jack Endries made the team and have flashed in camp and preseason.
For the first time in a while, the needle on the Vibe-O-Meter is near the top. No contract imbroglios, no hold-ins, no Burrow knee/wrist/toe watch. Just a team apparently united and concentrating on ball. Ja’Marr Chase gave everyone a fright with a knee twisty in practice but came out OK. And Cincinnati’s schedule, which features the AFC South and NFC South divisions, is by DVOA projection the easiest in the entire league.
Of course, none of that really matters once the action kicks off for real, as it does on September 13 at Paycor Stadium against old pal Baker Mayfield and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I suppose my main concern at this stage isn’t anything to do with personnel or schemes but the aforementioned psychology.
For all the good vibrations around the club, the first month of games is tricky if not daunting. We will get into the particular matchup with our initial opponents from Tampa in next week’s column, but for now suffice to say they will not be an easy out. Then come road encounters with one of the favorites in the AFC, Houston, and the dang Steelers, always a rockfight. The initial quatrain ends with the Jacksonville Jaguars, a team that went 13-4 last season and knocked Joe Burrow onto the injured list in Week 2 (though Cincy actually won that game, thanks to Jake Browning’s last moment of NFL competence). A somewhat softer afternoon with Miami in the Florida heat is scheduled for Week 5, and then comes a very early bye week.
So what will happen to these immaculate vibes if the team starts 2-3? The schedule becomes (presumably, you never really know of course) workable thereafter, but the game after the bye is in Baltimore. What if that ends up being a “gotta have it” game? What if the much-discussed new under-center offense is lumpy early in the campaign? What if the reconstructed defense takes a minute to gel? I don’t even want to get into the injury aspect, though of course that’s a consideration at all times.
So I worry about the mental impact should Cincinnati’s start slowly. The September record under Taylor was, as we all remember, a non-stop issue until last year, when the Bengals won their first two games (at the cost of losing Burrow). You’d like to think this is a team with a good long run of winning football in it and should be playing well at the end of the year, as Taylor’s teams usually do. But the noise surrounding a slow start could be deafening and lead to a breakdown of all the good feelings we’ve enjoyed this offseason.
But as the 2022 rallying cry went, “They gotta play us!” A solid start, say 4-2 through the Ravens game, sets up the team nicely for double-digit wins and even a run at a franchise record for victories, still holding at 12 (in 1981, 1988, and 2022). That’s getting way ahead of ourselves, of course. Let’s start with simply making the postseason for the first time since that ’22 glory. If the Bengals don’t get to the playoffs, there may be no saving Taylor’s job regardless of circumstances.
But that’s far too negative a line of thinking for Labor Day Weekend, when hope springs eternal. So let’s concentrate on the good things, starting with a fully healthy offense that, as referenced above, has spent the entire offseason installing an under-center game to make the attack more multi-faceted and dictatorial.
In some respects, the fact that the Bengals offense has been so efficient despite enemy defenses generally knowing they’ll play shell coverage against shotgun, 11-personnel formations on the overwhelming majority of snaps is a highly underrated achievement. Mostly that comes down to the fact that Burrow, Chase, and Tee Higgins are just so damn phenomenal it doesn’t matter much what the defense does. Add in the fact the Bengals, at long last, ran the ball well against light boxes, thanks to solid O-line play and Chase Brown’s effectiveness, and the team was a threat to score 30 points every time out, even with Joe Flacco running the show.
But there remain frustrating lags of inefficiency, and predictability is a sin among coaches. So anything the team can do to show more eye candy for the defense to worry about and force more one-on-one matchups that lead to explosive gains is worthwhile. I don’t doubt Cincinnati is sincere in its devotion to trying Burrow under center more often. But it remains to be seen whether they stick to it or default to Burrow’s shotgun comfort zone if things aren’t smooth, especially in that early stretch against tough defenses.
Offense, schmoffense. All eyes will be on big #97 and the reconfigured defense. Just having a double-team-eating tackle, competent edge rushers, and strong-tackling safeties figures to completely alter the outlook of a unit so full of holes over the last two seasons it resembled a fishing net. What matters isn’t so much the overall competency, generally expressed with the hoary shibboleth, “If they can just be average…”
More important to me is whether they can make the plays in crunch time, where they’ve given away so many games. As one-time Bengals assistant coach Bill Walsh once said, fourth quarter pass rush is the most important element to winning football. If the defense can at last come through while protecting a one-score lead or getting a late stop in a tie game, that should be reflected in the win column.
And don’t forget special teams! A case can be made for Evan McPherson as the greatest preseason kicker in history—he is now 34-for-36 on field goals that don’t count, with both misses from beyond 50 yards. More importantly, the overall special teams in his five years have roller-coastered, finishing top-6 in advanced ranking in odd seasons and closer to 20th in even years. This includes returns, coverage units, punting, etc, so it isn’t all on Money Mac, but his length and accuracy on field goals sets the tone.
The trio of McPherson, punter/holder Ryan Rehkow, and long snapper William Wagner is, for once, an effective holdover from the season before. Breaking that odd/even year trend will be an important and undersold aspect of the season.
So enjoy your barbecues and baseball games for another long weekend, saddled in that positive aura and energy. We will have plenty to bellyache about and nitpick soon enough, but it’s sure been a nice summer of leisure around the Bengals.
Robert Weintraub heads up Bengals coverage for Cincinnati Magazine and has written for The New York Times, Grantland, Slate, and Deadspin. Follow him on X at @robwein.
