The 2005 Bengals

[THE PISTONS]

(05-10-2019, 10:57 AM)NKURyan Wrote: They lost to the Super Bowl champions down the stretch in OT with a backup QB instead of their MVP. They lost to the Steelers down the stretch in a game where their MVP QB was knocked out for the season early on in the game. They barely lost to an equally great Cardinals team on the road on a goofy call, and they fell asleep against a division champion Texans team after starting the season 8-0. I don't think any of those losses are indications that the 2015 Bengals with Andy Dalton were unfit for a postseason run. You're reaching here.

The "total meltdown" never happens if Andy's out there because in all likelihood they're not in that situation in the first place. I strongly believed they would've won that game by multiple scores at full strength, because they were plain and simple the better team that year.


Of course, if Andy doesn't get hurt they probably don't play the first week of the postseason anyways, but come on... to imply the 2015 team wasn't SB caliber is pretty ridiculous.

Do we put a healthy Leveon Bell on the Steelers in this scenario too?

It's hard in any scenario to say we beat the Steelers as they pretty much statistically owned us since Marvin has been here.

But, I do think we had a better shot at beating the Steelers with Dalton. I won't say we win for sure, but there's a good chance we do.