Who Wins The AFCN "Honestly"

[Dr.Z]

(05-10-2022, 09:19 AM)bengalfan74 Wrote: We have the best shot, IMO

2nd Ravens

3rd Browns,  I just don't have them as tough as some do.

Last Steelers

Agree as things stand currently

[GodFather]

Whoever stays the healthiest will win the division. That will be the deciding factor. Teams are very close with the exception of Pittsburgh, they can rot in hell at the bottom this year..

[kalibengal]

(05-09-2022, 11:49 PM)Rubekahn29 Wrote: Honestly?

Cincinnati. After our Bye last year we finished 8-3 in meaningful games (throwing out last Cleveland game). The team improved all of last year and we got better this off season. In our division we have the best QB, WR1, WR2, safety tandem, nickel corner, best MLB, and are top two in our division in just about every other position group except maybe O-line. Could we lose? Sure. But I don’t think last year was a flash in the pan. Remember, Burrow was still working his way back last year and I think after the bye is closer to what we will see with this team.

I agree, and I think Balt will be biggest competition. We wil have a fully healthy Joey B not worried about his knee and a MUCH IMPROVED O line.
We beefed up our D and I think we ready to make another playoff run, with a little luck from the injury gods. This team went to the SB and will have alot of Swag this yr.  

[Frank Booth]

(05-10-2022, 10:29 AM)GodFather Wrote: Whoever stays the healthiest will win the division. That will be the deciding factor. Teams are very close with the exception of Pittsburgh, they can rot in hell at the bottom this year..

We all know pittsburgh isn’t finishing in last this year

How many times must they prove you people wrong and somehow finish .500 or better

[XenoMorph]

(05-10-2022, 10:52 AM)Frank Booth Wrote: We all know pittsburgh isn’t finishing in last this year

How many times must they prove you people wrong and somehow finish .500 or better

they could finish 500 and still be last in this division

[BobJones4980]

(05-10-2022, 12:27 AM)Emeritus Wrote:
-The Browns had the best offensive line and running --game in the division without Watson.

-The Ravens will be healthy with a hall of the ages in the draft. They got younger and much better with premium talent.

- If the Steelers figure it out at QB and the young weapons adapt quickly then they could be special!
They don't have an offensive line but neither did we and went to a SB.

I'm a die hard Bengals fan but we have to look at everything!

WHO IS OUR LG?

This division is brutal!

People really going overboard with the Ravens. Haul for the Ages?! Really?

I like Hamilton sure, good pick.

They essentially go Bozeman and Hollywood Brown for Tyler Linderbaum which in my opinion is a loss for them.

Then they got an injured LB in round 2.

I think they got better on defense but I'd say they got worse on offense. 

Also just because they drafted some board favorites doesn't mean they had a haul of the ages during the draft, that's almost laughable at this point. Maybe your right but we won't know for a while if all these picks were home runs or just our predraft bias.

[Sled21]

There are too many variables to pick with certainty, BUT, let's say all teams finish the season fully healthy. There is not a team in the Division that can hang with the Bengals. I feel like some of you are holding back from this in an effort to keep from being let down. But face it and look at the team. Best QB in the Division- Joe Burrow and it isn't even close. Best wide receiving trio in the division- Chase, Higgins and Boyd, and it isn't even close. Best running back in the division- Nick Chubb, but I'd put Mixon second. Best defense in the Division- Bengals. The entire league could not handle Joe Burrow to Chase last year, and this year Joe will actually have time to throw the ball without running for his life on every play. Chase is in year 2 and Higgins year 3. Mixon will absolutely go off behind Kappa Karras and Collins. We have Ossai returning to rush the passer. Lou has figured out how to contain and shut down Lamar, Mayfield is gone and while they replaced him with Watkins, he is new to the division and who knows how many games he will play. He's as likely to take all that guaranteed money and run as he is to come in a put in the work to win in the AFCN. Steelers have Trubisky, who is underrated, but is nowhere near what they had in the molestor. Bottom line, I know we won't win them all, but when I look at our upcoming opponent there is no game I look at and see a loss.

[*Wyche'sWarrior*]

(05-10-2022, 09:49 AM)BengalBob Wrote: Many of you don't understand just how good this team is.  The young and ascending Bengals learned how to win in a variety of different ways last season.  They attacked their biggest weakness aggressively in free agency and nailed the draft adding depth and will have 2 new starters by years end.  

This ain't your father's Bengals

They will dominate and win the division by 3 games

Agreed, hell, this ain't even MY Bengals.

[Soonerpeace]

The great season the Bengals had must have seemed like a dream to a few on this board including Emeritus. You’ve already forgotten the great moments and performances. Trey Hendrickson’s sacks happened. Logan Wilson’s interceptions happened. Ja Mar Chase’s one on one domination happened. Joe Burrow’s pinpoint passing and crucial scrambles happened, Shooter McPherson’s time after time clutch field goals happened, the defense’s late game turnovers happened, and they are still around.

The Steelers are going to struggle on offense. The Browns are not as good in the OL or at WR. Watson isn’t playing half the season at minimum and they will struggle w/o him. Stefanski runs a regimented offense and it doesn’t suit Watson or Mayfield. The Ravens will provide a stiff challenge and it will probably come down to the team that stays healthy. I think Lamar presses and tries to stay healthy so I think he has his worst season. Hamilton isn’t going to be a force at safety yet. Rookies mostly play like rookies. They lost Villanueva and Bozeman. Doubt Moses and Linderbaum plug and play.

The Bengals on the other hand didn’t lose anybody of consequence in FA and really bolstered their OL. The OP is worried about LG. The good news is the competition should generate solid play. The OL now is veteran. These guys know how to play. It’s Joe’s third year with his WR corp. This offense is going to explode to a huge level. Teams are going to struggle as we build early leads then run the clock and control games like championship teams do. We are going to force teams into our 3 safety look and our 6 DB’s aren’t going to allow much. It’s a recipe for winning consistently. Enjoy the ride.

[Soonerpeace]

(05-10-2022, 09:49 AM)BengalBob Wrote: Many of you don't understand just how good this team is. The young and ascending Bengals learned how to win in a variety of different ways last season. They attacked their biggest weakness aggressively in free agency and nailed the draft adding depth and will have 2 new starters by years end.

This ain't your father's Bengals

They will dominate and win the division by 3 games

No they don’t realize

[*psychdoctor*]

Teams with the best quarterback usually wins. Joe burrow was rated by pro football focus as the number one quarterback in the NFL. This rating is after playing with an offense line that was rated near the bottom of the NFL.

The Cincinnati Bengals are going to win AFC North.

The Steelers always find a way and I know everyone thinks they're going to finish last in the division they will find a way.

The problem with the Baltimore Ravens is they do not have wide receivers. Lamar Jackson want to have not too many people to throw to but their defense will be good as usual.

I think Watson is going to get at least six games if not eight games or longer. Cleveland browns offense line was rated in a top 10 last year and still had a losing season. They also lost Landry and he was a key part of their offense.

1- Bengals
2- Steelers
3- Ravens
4- Browns

[*jason*]

(05-10-2022, 11:29 AM)WychesWarrior Wrote: Agreed, hell, this ain't even MY Bengals.

You are the father in this scenario...

[leonardfan40]

(05-10-2022, 12:27 AM)Emeritus Wrote:
-The Browns had the best offensive line and running --game in the division without Watson.

-The Ravens will be healthy with a hall of the ages in the draft. They got younger and much better with premium talent.

- If the Steelers figure it out at QB and the young weapons adapt quickly then they could be special!
They don't have an offensive line but neither did we and went to a SB.

I'm a die hard Bengals fan but we have to look at everything!

WHO IS OUR LG?

This division is brutal!

Ravens had a haul for the ages?!?! Wow talk about going overboard. Even if they did, it won’t help them much this year. Ojabo likely out the season and even if he came back he wouldn’t be the same player he was before injury. Their S dropped for a reason, I wouldn’t want a slow safety going up against Chase. As Bobjones said, they gave up Hollywood from an already mediocre WR group and got Linderbaum in exchange to replace Bozeman who was far from a liability for them. Even if he comes in and plays great it’s not like they turned a weakness into a strength compared to last year. Linderbaum also dropped for a reason, there are real concerns about his chances at the next level whether fans on this forum who fell in love with him will admit it or not. WR’s are trash, Bateman could be good but can’t do it all himself.

The first CB they drafted should be in a protective bubble to keep him from getting hurt. They got two nice TE’s but both will need time and neither will be stealing any snaps from their TE1 Andrews this season. I really like Kolar, he could be a steal but again it won’t happen overnight. They also added a backup OT and a punter. Even if they get some steals they won’t see much immediate help this season from the draft.

The browns had the best o line/running game with Tretter who is gone. They had that with a better WR corps. If Watson comes in throwing the ball all over to Copper and the rest of the WR group made up of nobodies it will eat into their rushing attack as well. That’s if Watson isn’t suspended. If he is they have no passing game and a worse rushing attack AND potentially Baker Mayfield being a cancer (and who could blame him if they don’t cut/trade him)

The Steelers got rolled by us twice when we had a bad o line and they had Big Ben. As bad as he was, they haven’t upgraded the QB spot one bit and I’d say it’s even worse now.

[Sled21]

(05-10-2022, 01:23 PM)leonardfan40 Wrote: Ravens had a haul for the ages?!?! Wow talk about going overboard. Even if they did, it won’t help them much this year. Ojabo likely out the season and even if he came back he wouldn’t be the same player he was before injury. Their S dropped for a reason, I wouldn’t want a slow safety going up against Chase. As Bobjones said, they gave up Hollywood from an already mediocre WR group and got Linderbaum in exchange to replace Bozeman who was far from a liability for them. Even if he comes in and plays great it’s not like they turned a weakness into a strength compared to last year. Linderbaum also dropped for a reason, there are real concerns about his chances at the next level whether fans on this forum who fell in love with him will admit it or not. WR’s are trash, Bateman could be good but can’t do it all himself.

The first CB they drafted should be in a protective bubble to keep him from getting hurt. They got two nice TE’s but both will need time and neither will be stealing any snaps from their TE1 Andrews this season. I really like Kolar, he could be a steal but again it won’t happen overnight. They also added a backup OT and a punter. Even if they get some steals they won’t see much immediate help this season from the draft.

The browns had the best o line/running game with Tretter who is gone. They had that with a better WR corps. If Watson comes in throwing the ball all over to Copper and the rest of the WR group made up of nobodies it will eat into their rushing attack as well. That’s if Watson isn’t suspended. If he is they have no passing game and a worse rushing attack AND potentially Baker Mayfield being a cancer (and who could blame him if they don’t cut/trade him)

The Steelers got rolled by us twice when we had a bad o line and they had Big Ben. As bad as he was, they haven’t upgraded the QB spot one bit and I’d say it’s even worse now.

Yep, I said it before the draft I did not want him, he will be the kind of center Atkins used to sack the QB with. Reader and crew will be more than he can handle unless he puts on a lot of size. 

[Housh]

I see no reason the Bengals can’t win. It’ll come down to those 8 games. I don’t have faith in a wildcard spot because the rest of the conference is stronger than ever so I’m just assuming the wildcard team this year will have 4-5 losses so if we do worse than that I’m going to pencil us in as missing the playoffs


With that said our schedule while difficult is manageable. The main key of course is winning the division and seeing as we have the best QB in the division I’ll take us to win it again. If the Browns can stay afloat until Watson comes back i will be utterly surprised. So it’s really gonna be us and Baltimore unless Pickett turns out to be a god.

[Stewy]

(05-09-2022, 11:10 PM)Emeritus Wrote:

I just thought that it would be interesting to hear point of views after the draft and movement.

- I'd love to take my team but I'm taking the Steelers for some odd reason by a game to win the division over our Bengals. I think that we'll split outside of sweeping the Browns.

What ya think. I could see three teams making the playoffs out of the AFCN. OUR HEALTH WILL BE OUR BLESSING THIS SEASON.

I love how you keep asking the same things over and over in new threads, and 90%+ people continue to not agree with you, yet you just keep making these threads.  You say honestly like people have blinders on,  You keep making up best case scenarios for the other teams and keep insisting everyone should be worried.  And you put "honestly" in the thread title, which is an accusation of dishonesty on the subject your asking about because people aren't giving you the answers you want in your other threads, thus you're calling people liars.

Here's the truth.  If all the teams stay healthy, Cincy is the best team.  We have the best QB (and Burrow is only going to get better) and receivers by far in the division.  We tackled our biggest problem hard in FA, and potentially improved our secondary speed and versatility greatly.

Browns:  Watson may not play at all this year, he's never played in cold, he doesn't know the team and he only joined the Browns because of the money.  He's gotten paid and it's guaranteed and he has NO incentive to play well, except pride.  I believe the NFL is going to bring the hammer down on him to the point where he might not play until 2024.  The Browns are the Browns until they prove they are not, and Watson is such a BROWNS move, that I can't believe you (and so many others) are falling for the hype.

Ravens:  They are going to be a singular offense.  Lou has figured out how to play scrambling quarterbacks, and they certainly have figured out LAMAR.  Most of their offense in two games last year against us was on long bombs to Brown on scrambles.  Brown is gone and he has no one to throw to.  If they rely upon a singular running attack and short game, they'll get killed by our speed and Lamar will end up on IR from over use.  We smoked them at full health early in the year at their place, then did it again later on.

Stoolers:  Decent Weapons and runner, a defense that gives up tons of points a yards, but has the best sacker in the game is not a defense to be feared.  A new rookie QB, new system, NFL speed.....good luck with that.

There, that is my "honest" assessment.  I believe we'll go 5-1 or sweep the division again.

[*bengalfan74*]

(05-10-2022, 04:20 PM)Stewy Wrote: I love how you keep asking the same things over and over in new threads, and 90%+ people continue to not agree with you, yet you just keep making these threads.  You say honestly like people have blinders on,  You keep making up best case scenarios for the other teams and keep insisting everyone should be worried.  And you put "honestly" in the thread title, which is an accusation of dishonesty on the subject your asking about because people aren't giving you the answers you want in your other threads, thus you're calling people liars.

Here's the truth.  If all the teams stay healthy, Cincy is the best team.  We have the best QB (and Burrow is only going to get better) and receivers by far in the division.  We tackled our biggest problem hard in FA, and potentially improved our secondary speed and versatility greatly.

Browns:  Watson may not play at all this year, he's never played in cold, he doesn't know the team and he only joined the Browns because of the money.  He's gotten paid and it's guaranteed and he has NO incentive to play well, except pride.  I believe the NFL is going to bring the hammer down on him to the point where he might not play until 2024.  The Browns are the Browns until they prove they are not, and Watson is such a BROWNS move, that I can't believe you (and so many others) are falling for the hype.

Ravens:  They are going to be a singular offense.  Lou has figured out how to play scrambling quarterbacks, and they certainly have figured out LAMAR.  Most of their offense in two games last year against us was on long bombs to Brown on scrambles.  Brown is gone and he has no one to throw to.  If they rely upon a singular running attack and short game, they'll get killed by our speed and Lamar will end up on IR from over use.  We smoked them at full health early in the year at their place, then did it again later on.

Stoolers:  Decent Weapons and runner, a defense that gives up tons of points a yards, but has the best sacker in the game is not a defense to be feared.  A new rookie QB, new system, NFL speed.....good luck with that.

There, that is my "honest" assessment.  I believe we'll go 5-1 or sweep the division again.

Well said and totally agree.

I chuckle a little every time somebody talks about how tough the Browns are gonna be even if Watson plays 10 games or something. Watson and the Browns aren't going to just hit the ground running like he's been there for years.

The Browns have won the preseason Super Bowl what 3 of the last 4 years ? I ain't buying it.

[OSUfan]

The Bengals win the AFCN.

[Whatever]

(05-10-2022, 11:08 AM)BobJones4980 Wrote: People really going overboard with the Ravens. Haul for the Ages?! Really?

I like Hamilton sure, good pick.

They essentially go Bozeman and Hollywood Brown for Tyler Linderbaum which in my opinion is a loss for them.

Then they got an injured LB in round 2.

I think they got better on defense but I'd say they got worse on offense. 

Also just because they drafted some board favorites doesn't mean they had a haul of the ages during the draft, that's almost laughable at this point. Maybe your right but we won't know for a while if all these picks were home runs or just our predraft bias.

Baltimore has serious issues in roster construction, imo.

They simply don't have the offensive weapons to hang with teams in a shootout or to be able to come back from multiple possessions down.  They are going to have trouble getting points in 2 minute situations.  Because of that, they are going to have to rely heavily on Lamar running the ball to generate offense.  That, in turn, increases his risk of injury.  They're also gambling on a number of rookies being able to come in and play at a high level immediately, which just isn't realistic.  Yeah, their draft looks great on paper to the folks who think you can get 3-4 immediate starters in a draft, but a lot of the picks people are slobbering over have legitimate knocks which caused them to drop.  Hamilton has speed issues.  Linderbaum has size and arm length knocks.  Ojabo may not play at all this year.  

Not to mention that Baltimore went 0-6 against the AFCN last year.  You can't put a team that couldn't even win one division game on top the following year.

The cherry on top is that Baltimore's projected starting LG Tyre Phillips actually graded worse than Carman per PFF.  If the takes about the Bengals OL imploding because of Carman are true, then they must also apply to Baltimore and they are in worse shape.

[*Wyche'sWarrior*]

(05-10-2022, 01:15 PM)jason Wrote: You are the father in this scenario...