Where would you put a Healty 2015 Bengal team in relation to Top 12 Playoff teams ?

[depthchart]

2018 Playoff teams as of 12/26/18 by seeding:

  AFC:                                            NFC:                       

  1. Chiefs                                       1. Saints
  2. Patriots                                     2. Rams
  3. Texans                                      3. Bears
  4. Ravens                                      4. Cowboys
  5. Chargers                                    5. Seahawks
  6. Colts                                          6. Vikings


If the 2015 Bengal team is about the Best Caliber we can expect from Mike and Marvin, then how would you answer the question below ?

Which of the above teams would you say the 2015 Bengal team would be able to beat in the Playoffs assuming Andy Dalton would be Healthy for the game or games ?

I would venture to say that the 2015 Bengal team could have won the 2018 AFC North in this purely hypothetical situation. Would you agree & who else could they possibly beat from the 2018 field of teams with a Healthy Dalton ?

Would you say, for example, that the 2015 Bengal team may be of a similar caliber to the 2018 Rams, better than the 2018 Vikings or Cowboys, able to challenge the 2018 Chargers or Chiefs with a Healthy Dalton ?

[GreenCornBengal]

History says even the 2015 team would have lost in the playoffs.

0-7 really gives no leg to stand on in trying to prove how far they COULD go.

fwiw, I think the 2015 Bengals team is better than all those AFC teams other than KC a few weeks back.

NFC is a different story, lots of good teams over there.

[depthchart]

(12-26-2018, 04:57 PM)GreenCornBengal Wrote: History says even the 2015 team would have lost in the playoffs.

0-7 really gives no leg to stand on in trying to prove how far they COULD go.

fwiw, I think the 2015 Bengals team is better than all those AFC teams other than KC a few weeks back.

NFC is a different story, lots of good teams over there.

Dalton did miss the 2015 Playoffs with injury and is why I make him Healthy for this hypothetical scenario.

Came within a whisker of winning with inexperienced McCarron back then to possibly make it 1 and 6 in the Playoffs.

If the 2015 Bengal team could somehow be added to this 2018 field, they could possibly make some noise.

Would need a Fleet of "Back to the Future" Delorean cars to make it all happen plus a crazy Scientist with a flux capacitor. 

[Millhouse]

I think they could possibly beat 3-4 of those teams: Cowboys, Vikings, Ravens, and maybe Colts.

But I have never seen Andy play good in the playoffs ever. Not even a sniff of playing good in 4 playoff games, regardless of Marvin.

I have seen Marvin go 0-7, with that same 2015 team losing mainly due to Hill's fumble. He doesn't fumble, game over with a backup QB getting the win.

So really I would place that team somewhere below the middle of this year's playoff pack.

[HarleyDog]

Marvin is still the coach, so can't compare. Even in 2015, he was horrible at clock management, discipline, accountability and preparation. A healthy team would have given the same result.

[*pally*]

A healthy team beat both the Colts and the Ravens. A decidedly not healthy team lost to the Chargers by only 2 points

[*Awful Llama*]

Healthy or not, Merv's still captain of the ship, and would have steered it right over the falls.

So, given their first game would have also been their last:

If they didn't earn a bye: bottom four

If they earned a bye: bottom six

[depthchart]

(12-26-2018, 05:15 PM)pally Wrote: A healthy team beat both the Colts and the Ravens.  A decidedly not healthy team lost to the Chargers by only 2 points

Yes - that was the 2018 Bengal team.

I'm actually wondering how people feel the 2015 Bengal team could do if it could somehow compete against these 2018 Playoff teams with a Healthy Dalton.

[motoarch]

It’s hard to say because we’ve seen a healthy Andy in the playoffs numerous times and he was not better than AJ was in that 2015 game.

On top of that I’m not so sure that was our best team of the dalton era. I think it was the team that lost at home to the chargers in the playoff, further supporting my statement above. We had a healthy team and an 8-0 home record while out scoring our opponents by a large margin at home. We still lost to a wildcard team traveling cross country.

Edit: the short answer is I don’t think healthy or not it would matter.

[Bilbo Saggins]

That roster was very good, but was reliant on Bodine, AJ Hawk, and Maualuga (who had a bit of a redemption season, but was still not a + coverage LB). That team would've most likely lost to this year's Saints, Rams, Pats, and Chiefs. I could see that team beating any of the other 12, even in a dominant way, so long as Dalton didn't totally implode.

[fredtoast]

In the 12 games with Dalton at QB the 2015 Bengals were 10-2 with wins against KC (11-5) SEA (10-6) and PITT (10-6). The two losses were to Conference Champions (HOU, ARI)

They had the #4 scoring offense and the #1 scoring defense. They had an +11.3 points per game scoring differential that is exactly the same as this year's Saints team which leads the league.

That team would have been a serious contender to win it all any year.

[motoarch]

That doesn’t answer the question though. How would they have done in the playoffs and as we’ve seen they are not the same team in the playoffs they are during the regular season. You can toss all those stats out the window cause they mean nothing in the post season.

[J24]

They win the Superbowl no doubt in my mind.

[fredtoast]

(12-26-2018, 06:09 PM)motoarch Wrote: That doesn’t answer the question though.  How would they have done in the playoffs and as we’ve seen they are not the same team in the playoffs they are during the regular season.  You can toss all those stats out the window cause they mean nothing in the post season.

That is the big question.  There have been lots of players who "couldn't" win a big game until they did, but there have been other who never won a big game.

There is just no way of knowing.

[THE PISTONS]

(12-26-2018, 05:10 PM)depthchart Wrote: Dalton did miss the 2015 Playoffs with injury and is why I make him Healthy for this hypothetical scenario.

Came within a whisker of winning with inexperienced McCarron back then to possibly make it 1 and 6 in the Playoffs.

If the 2015 Bengal team could somehow be added to this 2018 field, they could possibly make some noise.

Would need a Fleet of "Back to the Future" Delorean cars to make it all happen plus a crazy Scientist with a flux capacitor. 

People forget some things:

1) The Steelers were without Bell and still ran all over us.
2) We started out 8-0 that year and finished 4-4. So we peaked too early.
3) We played pretty bad most of that playoff game...like for 3 quarters then played really well in the 4th quarter only to collapse.

The bottom line is we had the game in hand and found a way to lose. Seems to be a pattern with this team.

No sense doing these hypotheticals. The reality is we haven't won a playoff game in 26+ years.

[motoarch]

(12-26-2018, 06:18 PM)fredtoast Wrote: That is the big question.  There have been lots of players who "couldn't" win a big game until they did, but there have been other who never won a big game.

There is just no way of knowing.

We can agree on that for sure.

[*bengalfan74*]

In 2015 after beating Pittsburgh on Nov. 1st we played 5 more games, including playoffs against playoff teams and we lost every one of them.

Texans, Cardinals, Steelers, Broncos, Steelers.

Fact is Marvin Lewis loses nearly 75% of the time he faces playoff caliber teams ! Nothing makes me believe with him in charge that team would be any different this season.

So at the bottom.

[Socal Bengals fan]

Marvin would steer that healthy 2015 team right into a lighthouse ! 0 n 7

[wolfkaosaun]

Only team in the AFC I would see them having a problem with is the Chiefs. But then again, that defense was AMAZING.

What they did against the Steelers in the playoffs was incredible. Sure, the last drive had some awful results. But they kept that high scoring offense to only scoring 1 TD while the offense was hot garbage.

I'm not a fan of Marvin, but I do believe the Bengals were an elite team that year. Definitely in the top 3 of all time when it comes to this franchise (when healthy).

[SunsetBengal]

My honest opinion? If the 2015 Bengals had gotten paired against any other team in the Conference on that fateful night, the Bengals would have emerged with the elusive playoff victory. That defense was STACKED, and had the superb coaching staff to prove it.

I would put that 2015 team, with a healthy Andy against any of today's playoff teams. The one's I feel would give them the most difficulty? The Bears or Saints.