2026 Cincinnati Bengals Preview: Roster, Odds & Win Total

[Music] Welcome to the acclaimed podcast The Deep Dive featuring your esteemed hosts, Andy Monitor and Drew Dinsick, powered by Betz Spurs. Welcome to The Deep Dive, Andy. Wanna talk about the Bengals? Yeah, we've got some people in our ears saying that they're pro-Bingal people and I guess I can see it. If you had to suck on one side of the ball, I would be the side I would pick. Wow, I'm gonna push back on how much they suck on the other side. They're not gonna suck. For the season data didn't really look as sucky as the perception. Here's the thing about the Bengals, Andy. I thought they were good bet to win the Super Bowl when they were 30 to 1. That number's come in a lot. They've gotten some serious support by the market and I think it's probably fueled by the fact that their schedule is pretty easy. I also think that it's fueled by the perception this is a little bit of an hour never for this group of individuals. The seat never really gets hot in Cincinnati because of the ownership group there. But I think the seat is-- It got Marvin Lewis for an incredibly long time. Yeah, he has a stuck in neutral. Yeah, what did we give him for more years? This is kind of it though. Zack Taylor doesn't succeed this year with this group. If they have a healthy year, I think he's bye-bye-oh. Duke Tobin, he's not even the GM Andy. He's the de facto GM. His seat is very, very not codified. And yeah, Dan Pitcher, Al Golden, this entire coaching staff, I feel like is a bit of a prove it year for them. And yeah, I think if you're ever going to get kind of an upside performance out of this group, it's now or never. And sometimes that type of pressure helps teams perform well because the coach goes into his bag and really kind of grinds out the edges he needs to get you that extra win. Sometimes it helps you implode. Sometimes it goes sideways, it goes the other way. And I don't have a strong opinion about Zack Taylor and his status among the coaches in terms of bottom half top half even really. I have, but I definitely think that the fact that you have high confidence in your quarterback, you have high confidence in your weapons in the passing game. And you've cut down on the variance on those two potentially hugely consequential categories. And it gives you the opportunity to hit a higher ceiling this year as a group overall. And it just kind of comes down to coaching and development, right? Yeah, pressure makes diamonds. Pressure makes diamonds. Also crushed that miniature sub sub-submarine. And it's like, it's liquefying everyone inside of it. And it's like a lot of offense and, you know, especially early in the year and 30th. It made it really difficult to win games. It was a terrible, it was a poorly constructed defense of roster and inexperienced defense of roster. Well, it lost you your season is that Joe broke I heard in week two. I know, but that's every year. Yeah, I know, I know, but that was what that that's specifically. No, I mean that that's specifically, but I don't know that I don't know that even if he was healthy the whole year. If it's if they're able to overcome that, you know, you see this with a few teams every year. And I think we're at a point, I mean, just fast forwarding to the end part here. I think we're at a point where it's not going to be like top five defense or top five offense, bottom five defense every year. The defense pulls itself up a little by the bootstraps and gets you to a spot where if Joe does stay healthy, finally, we're we're a contender. I think this is a contending team. I don't know the, but there's some continuity as much as you know, we're not like Zach Taylor guys eight year eight by the way for Zach Taylor. Continuity Dan pitcher, Al Golden, a pevel underneath. I mean, they did replace some guys here and there. And obviously they did a bunch of moves on the defensive side of the ball, but coaching continuity, the only one in the division, which is stunning, I guess from considering I wouldn't when we had gone to the beginning of the year last year 2025 said which coach is most in the hot seat this year. I mean, clearly, I think we had said Taylor once to fans can too. And the other guys are they can do whatever they want. They've bought that kind of equity and fact Taylor's the only one that survives the season. So in the injuries, the defense, sticking out loud, not letting them really use the thing, even with Joe burrow out. And this is a division that was one with what 11 games 11 and six. You know that you could have snuck out a few more caves here and there even with backup quarterbacks and that a chance in this division. And maybe that's the case again this year we're not super super high on the only real super bowl contender according to the market in this one either. So Joe burrow gets hurt week two eject hosting Jacksonville your turns week 13 at Baltimore on Thanksgiving. You mentioned that he's a fragile dude who gets hurt a lot in his absence, Andy. One in eight one in eight one in eight. You'll have that. You're not you're not going to win any games with the backup your 30th ranked defense. Well, you're blaming the defense, but the offense weeks three through six. They were 32nd. It was the worst offense in football. I have to look at those game stage. These are roundabout. Yes, but I'm just finding hard time now. I mean, they lost to the Broncos 28 to three. Here's the thing. Let's agree to disagree. Okay. And they lost to the Jets Andy 39 38. I know I remember that game. Let's agree to disagree to move on more to 2026 because this is a fun team. Yeah, and that's been a theme for what five years Joe burrow misses some games. The defense is. I mean, when was the last time this defense was good? Probably they're super bowl. They're super bowl. Yeah, you had. When they had the good safety deal. You had the good safety. I was just going to say you had two good safeties. You had. Yeah, it's these. It's a lot of stress. Yeah, halfway decent pass. So real quick off season. As we mentioned, retained most of the top end of the coaching staff, front and some other. Sean to side. Remember him. I think he was. Maybe an Eagles DC. He's a senior defense assistant on the team now. Davis cutter. Is your assistant white receivers coach. Where do you know that name from Drew Davis cutter? I daughter. Cut it out. What where do I know it from? It's dark. Oh, son of Tampa Bay family. Nepotism. Yeah, this happens. This happens every year. Baby. Hey, here's a guy. Her. Didn't have that on my radar. Yeah, here's a guy whose dad had the same last name as him and this on a team now, but. Yeah, not a lot else to say about the. The off season stuff with the next year Lawrence. Trade. I suppose it's your biggest off season move in from the New York Giants for your 2026. First, strong pick. This is your defensive. It's a rebuild. I mean, I think you still got a little ways to go, but it's a nice piece to anchor around. I guess I've always had the opinion that depending on what you feel like you're going to get for your first run pick. I love a team who says we've evaluated the players that we need and that we can get with the pick we have. And we'd rather have someone we know is good. You know, rather than sometimes draft picks don't work out and then everything. And then the defense does kind of depend on how he plays. Hopefully he plays well because they did bring in some other pieces. Jonathan Allen. Free agent. A lot of interior. In fact, boy, a mafia. I'm not sure we've ever gotten his. just 100% not to say his name right, but that was another Seattle jettison to few guys just because that's what happened for me. I have a really good defense. He can't keep everybody. So brought in defense event from Seattle. He is kind of your Hendrixson replacement. We'll get to that. He's more of a runstopper. He's passed the sucks. He's got to he's got to play in that spot though. Yeah, that's true. Somebody has to be out there defensive and Brian could be out there. I'll be honest with you, man. In my opinion, in the in a blonde in the blind, Hendrixson for Lawrence is an upgrade on your deal. I think so, especially for how much Hendrixson missed time if you want to make that part of the equation. Why was he say like, especially if like, yeah, you're paying your you're going to pay with Lawrence throughout his decline, which is notable. I guess that matters. But I think he is still in his prime. And I had him rated as one of the better past rushers. And his runstop is substantially more notable than what Tray Hendrixson. Tray Hendrixson was just flat out bad against the run. Like Tray Hendrixson was part of the problem because he was accruing stats for his next contract and not taking plays off when he knew it was a run. Do you disagree with that? I don't know if I watched enough angles. Actually, he was he was playing he was only playing on passing down, but he was on the field for all bounce. That was that was my opinion. Yeah. All right, we're really well, we'll get we'll get deeper and we get into some for ratings. Brian, yeah, basically I'm pitching. I'm pitching that this often this defensive line should be an upgrade, percent perceived as an upgrade. Yeah, sure. Well, we get to that rating. We'll we'll get deep into this that crap swap because that is an important part of what how they're going to build this. So Kyle Dugger, Brian Cook, safeties from Kansas City and Dugger was in Pittsburgh. Yeah, because he was in he was in New England too. Maybe that though he's not going to play over. He's no battle in the way. No, he is he sits behind battle at strong safety. That is not a battle. Although they're saying it's a little bit of a competition in camp, but I do think it's just it's battle spot. Josh Johnson is on this team. It's a fun little throw in just sir Taylor cornerback, Mitchell deal. Like we mentioned, Trey Hendrickson is in Baltimore. We'll talk about him even more in the next podcast when we talk about Baltimore. And then Jake Browning is a Tampa Bay Buccaneer. And then Joseph Ascii is off this team too, which is another rotational rutscher that it's like, well, you weren't going to pay him what he was going to get with belief the Jets. So that's fine too. You're going to recite Orlando Brown. You're he he stinks. The Paul G is to his family. He's he's a rotational guy. You brought in in the draft. You did not have a first run pick his desk. Dolores, you drafted an edge, Keshe's hole from A and M. The Aggie. He's immediately into your past rotation, no matter what. But as of right now with Schemar Stewart out for a few weeks with a hyper extended knee and BJ Hill on a managed workload, Hull is probably taking a bigger role right now in camp. And that's who knows how long that lasts. We got to see if the Schemar Stewart stuff leaks into the season or not, same thing with Hale. Running back in the or excuse me, a corner back to cardio Davis from Washington outside corner depth in the third round. A safe corner, a corner, a center. A C is for center, Andy. In the fourth round, kind of a developmental guy, sixth round, they took another offensive lineman Brian Parker, another wide receiver in the fourth. Colby Young, he's listed on the left side right behind Schemar Chase, which will get to the depth of the wide receiver room eventually as well. And then a tight end and a defensive tackle in the seventh round, late round depth at positions that were already addressed in free agency, like defensive tackle, which they between edge in the second round, some depth later on, and some of the free agents that they really did, kind of shore up the secondary. And the front four, front three, however you want to place it, the front, the spot they missed a little bit, because you can't fix everything at once. It's probably that linebacker room. We'll talk about that for sure, because that's very much reflected in how I had to do some of my ratings, because it matters. OK. Missing buddy, I think that's about it. No, I think I just want to-- all right, 14 minutes in change. We usually would now pivot towards ratings, right? That's because I want to talk about this defense for a long time. Because we do that right now. Or do we want to do what? We can start with offense. Or whatever you want to talk about. Let's just go right to the ratings zone. Let's get there. Yeah, man, let's spend some time on the defense, because I think we-- Yeah, I think we've been spending too much time in 2025. We're trying to help people get ready for one point. When we get to the defense, you're not going to believe what I'm going to do, though. I'm going to go back to 2025. I'm going to split samples. I'm going to split samples like crazy. Just to take a quick time out, that's an incredibly difficult part of doing this modeling, the process of it is all, is using how much of that-- how much of that bleeds over and some of it is based on which players are left, which coaches are left, but also which players played. And it's not just, hey, one of your important players missed time. And that affected the thing that he does best. Sometimes it's one of your most important players missed time. And that might have made four other people way worse at their job, because it made their jobs much more difficult. And so it does have a cascading effect when it's a high-end player missing time. It made it a tough defense to go over, but we'll start on the offensive side of the ball. OK. Jimura went healthy as a top five quarterback in the NFL. I don't think it's really worth arguing. Even with the issues last year, he put up comparable numbers to players that we rank in consistently in the top 10. And over a larger sample, I have him as one of the most efficient quarterbacks in football. He is a fragile dude, which is spooky. But I went with an 8.1 for QBOC, and I don't really have any heartburn over that. He seems like a solved entity in terms of fair rating. Wendy's healthy. Yeah. I was at a 7.3. I think he's still ranked as one of my top five. I think I'm just kind of a little lower in general, because I am creating the O.C.'s a little heavier, I think, than you. And while pitcher is fine, pitcher just, I don't know. This pitcher feel like more of a consequence of Borough rather than Borough consequence of pitcher. Yes, he does. Anywhere you read from camp reports about this team a bunch, they basically say like he built an offense that just features a lot of passing because he has Joe Borough, and that's what makes it easy. He's hitting the easy button, which is, you know, I'm viewing this as a knock on the guy, but also honestly, we've used that as a positive before. We talked about that when God, who was it? Roman first got to Baltimore, and I was like, well, he's just letting Lamar do the stuff he's really good at. What's fuck's wrong with that? Like, hey, do you want to have success? Play to people's strengths. So I'm a little lower in pitcher just as a offensive mind in general, and the, you know, the Zach Taylor's, the guy who's putting it together as well, but I'm still at a 7.3. I think he's like my fifth best quarterback. Okay. All right. I think I have a fourth. Josh Pat. Lamar? I have Josh and Lamar over him. I don't have Pat. And it's not. Pat's a weird one because of the injury. Yeah, the injury and the, and, you know, the current status of that system. I think you have to have a little bit of clear eyes about how to fairly rate the chief setting into this season. No, Josh and Josh and Buffalo is my number one. Pretty plus Shanahan is in my number two. Oh, that's sad. Why you think that I had to have Shanahan knock some down a peg or two? I mean, they have to get into account. He'll be fine. I have them. I have them. Jackson, not two. Yeah, Jackson's my number three. Pretty much don't care about the Declan Doyle part of that equation. Burrows my number four. And then actually my rating for burrow and Stafford plus McVeigh are equal. Are you? They're both there. I should know. Declan Doyle already. I'm not, but I'm not saying that he's not he's not an additive factor to that. I'm very, very much not. Yeah. Put a, yeah, put a couple of kids in a trench coat on the sidelines with the clipboard. And I'm still rating Lamar Jackson was top three. I thought you were going to say I might assume that's Declan Doyle because I don't know what he looks like. Yeah. 6.3. You got the best receiver in the league. You've got a very good one. I didn't love some of the Yochavas stuff last week. You're really? Because I bet on him a few times for some player props. I feel like maybe I'm just tilted by some drops he had because he was driving me nuts. I was more disappointed with T Higgins at times. I thought he was one of the guys that X hailed when when Brow was out of the picture, T Higgins X hailed. He was getting paid pretty decently and now he definitely is. So T Higgins, yeah, he's a step lower than he was a year or two ago and then built behind that. It is just garbage. I mean, it is really tough for the depth chart once you get behind those three guys. And like I said, I'm not super high on Yochavas at this point. He's your slot guy. But yeah, behind those guys, you have Corby Colby Young, the fourth runner. I just mentioned if you heard of Mitch Tinsley. First, I'm hearing of him. Yeah, he's he's he's second in your depth chart. And now Charlie Jones is your slot. And then you know, it's funny because at tight end, it's a bunch of names I know. But then I go look and like I don't have great ratings on any of these guys. Sample Gisicchi at this point I used to Eric, all junior Tanner Hudson. It's like, there's like five tight ends. I know the name is of Katas because I was reading the injury reports. But yeah, that that and then Chase Brown, Samarish, Perine, Taj Brookes, as you're running that group. It's a little thin there. So it's basically if it was only Jamar Chase out there, I would make the skill group of six. And I'm making it a six point. I like Chase Brown. Chase Brown can chase Brown can he is under appreciated for his contributions to the passing game. And that's true. That's true. And a little bump in the catch. Yeah, as a split goes for who's catching the balls. As a group, this is my number six offensive unit or skill group. This is my sixth rated skill group. I have met a six point seven. Yeah, I just it's capped by your white or silver three slash depth offensive line. I agree with that. We agreed here. Okay. I have the exact same rating for offensive line. Talk me through how you got independently got there. This only happened a couple times. But it's fun. Yeah, it's just Orlando Brown. You're extending. You want him to be your guy. Amarius Mims in his third year now. I like him. I like him. He is he is a positive on the right side. Ted Caris. Do not like it. It's a reliable middle of the pack center who is not a negative. I don't believe. P you for me. Dalton Ryseners my P you. Okay. He's well worse than Caris. I have Caris is serviceable. And then you actually have a rookie in that I mentioned that Connor Lou will be developing behind Caris. Maybe he ends up buying this here. Let's get him out there. Let's give him a shot. Guys. Give him a shot. We'll see him a little bit in camp. And then yes, still in Fairchild at left guard, which is he was a third-browder last year. And I have him as a pretty decent man. Yeah, it's like, hey, you're starting a guy you drafted on day two. Last year, we'll see that he is definitely both the guards are dragging this down. Color me color me worried. Blow average about the interior pressure when you're up against a team that has good DTs. A little bit. I think the end the tackle should be okay. The interior is going to be an issue like you mentioned. Okay. So your number was 3.9? 3.9. We were both 3.9. 3.9 are in there. Okay. Sixth offense overall. Thanks to the robusto number I gave to Corbeco C, 67th percentile offense. As long as Joe Burrow is out there walking around healthy, I think this is a must respect unit. I don't know what to say. Joe Flacker takes. Fourth. Percentile. Okay. It is my fourth-best offense. Wow. Okay. Oh, you're cool on offense in general. That sounds like just just the way I the way I'm doing it, I think. But yes, it is just the Rams bills and yours and Francisco 49ers ahead of them. I do have a ton of teams mashed between 60 and 64. So I have a ramp barely ahead of have you adjusted your 9ers wide receiver number for whatever the hell's going on there. I'm just I'm just gonna I haven't yet. So they'll come down. But I have them as a 68th percent. They'll come down probably based on what I have to do there. But again, I kind of just said I'm gonna wait and see how many more injuries we have from the power plant, slash electrical substation, and then we'll figure it out the beginning of the year. Or when we do the 9ers preview, I have I didn't want to spend a lot of time on that right now. So I have 64th-best offense. Yeah, I have a 64th percentile offense. Excuse me. You mentioned I have the Rams, the bills, the Ravens, the Dallas Cowboys, and the 9ers all better than the Bengals. But they're clustered very tightly. Let's talk about defense then. Stretch our legs a little bit here. And last year, the Cincinnati Bengals defense, as you mentioned, multiple times already on this podcast had moments of true putridness, true, truly spectacular, you know, fuckery out there. If you specifically single out the first half of the season as a sample set, they are last in the NFL in EPA per play with a bullet. They are second to last in Dropbag EPA per play allowed second to last in running EPA per play allowed. So it didn't matter how you attacked the Bengals, you had a very successful day. In fact, we just were going over some of the elite offenses in the NFL, Andy. It didn't matter which offense you were trotting out there. They looked like the number one offense in the NFL in terms of EPA expected EPA on that day, on that day. So in the worst part, you could really, really and to the point of even maybe being worse than the Cowboys at times, you could really run on them. So if you did get a lead, you could just continue to run and run and run and you're not getting the ball back to your offense and it makes it very difficult to win some of those points of games. You ended up with six wins total and yes, it was a struggle and I respect the way they kind of the opposite of their statemates, the Browns who said, boy, we got to put everything into the offense we can. And maybe not fix quarterback because that's just not our style. That's not something we do in this town. But our defense is fine. Let's fix the offense. It was kind of the same thing. You're like, hey, the offense is fine. When we're healthy, let's let's dump it into the defense. Let's get rid of the one guy who wants to get paid way too much, bring in a different guy who gets paid a lot and then build around him. Okay, so here's the weird thing then. How do you go the first half of the season, this Bengals team defense was historically bad. Over the second half of the season, they were better than league average rushing defense. In fact, they were a good rushing defense. They were negative point one EPA per rush allowed. That's good. They were a solid past defense. Their cumulative EPA per play allowed put them squarely in the middle of the league. In fact, effectively in a dead heat tie with your Pittsburgh Steelers. Over the second half of the season. They kind of met in the middle there. What gifts? How did they do it? Is this just a matter of who was on their schedule? Is this a matter of young players improving, finding their roles, coaching, getting better? What the hell happened to go from conceding 47 points to the Chicago Bears before you're by to absolutely embarrassing the Baltimore Ravens with Lamar Jackson on the field on Thanksgiving night? I never did really get an answer to this. I dug in a little to the last years as I was trying to put graves together for this year. I think maybe it was just a little bit of the same kind of stuff you saw with, you know, we'll all go back to the McDonald example of like, we love the hire in Seattle. Often it takes time. We saw that with him in Michigan. We saw that with him in Baltimore. It took that second year. I think Golden is a good name. I think Golden was well respected when they got hired when they hired him. We'll see you in Notre Dame. Yes. You know, when they brought him up to the coach here and it was what, that was his first year. Is he in year two this year, I believe? I'm almost certain that's the case. I think a big part of it was just bringing in a DC who didn't have a ton of experience, had been coaching at the at the college level. And you're out. I don't know. You've got it all correct so far. I don't, I don't have a really good answer other than he just needed to get his, he needed to get his bearings because it was a bad defense. But the, the product they put out for like the first seven eight games was way below where they should have been, you know, it wasn't like they had, they didn't have the interest, but Dallas made sense. Like, okay, hey, all your cornerbacks were missing to start the season. You traded away, make a Parsons and then you started dropping other guys like fly. It's like, of course, you're picking up players that shouldn't be on teams right now. Of course, your defense is not going to stop the run. So I don't know. I'm going to give Golden some credit. And maybe I need to bump them up if I'm, if I'm starting to talk to myself, Adele Golden. I think you have to give Golden credit. And I actually, I think it goes a step even beyond what you're saying. You're absolutely right in that he was shuffling players. I can't remember what exactly happened to Logan Wilson, but he was pretty reasonably well compensated. He was your anchor of your second line. You know, you're, you're, you're a linebacking core there. And by a mid season, he was benched for Barrett Carter. And there was a notable improvement from Barrett Carter, who was a fourth round rookie that year. If you look at kind of single like great game by game grading for some of the younger players in the secondary, like they clearly got a lot of money. They got a lot better as the year went on, which I think you can kind of ascribe to coaching. Gino Stone and Jordan Battle, the, the safeties got a lot better as the year went on. That was pretty clear. The standout performer from that Bangal's defense though was the coverage from Jalen Davis who only played 262 snaps. He was kind of the secret sauce, which I don't understand, because I don't know anything about Jalen Davis and why that would have been a thing. But yeah, it was, it was a really weird year. And I don't think that the improvement was based on playing a bunch of teams who were tanking. Excuse me. The second half sample we were talking about included games against Drake May, two against Lamar Jackson, one against what's his face, Josh Allen. The Josh Allen game, you conceded 47 points, but there were some, I think there were some defensive touchdowns. There's definitely one defensive touchdown that was an embarrassing fuck up on the part of Joe Barrow. Also, even if, yeah, even if there weren't in their were. It's still Josh Allen. Like, we'll give you some grace there. Okay. So yeah, I think it is a matter of golden finding his NFL legs and coaching up the players that were available to the tune of, they're just better players now. You have to, you have to acknowledge that. I think people who are waiting into the water of this year's Bengal steam, expecting this to be, you know, a truly bad defense again are probably going to be really surprised. And I will admit Andy, I'm coming in. I'm coming in. I'm coming in low. I'm, I'm, one, here's the thing I'm going to have to come in low and I, I'm expecting a, like 30th for Cental defense that finishes like 45th because of we saw it last year. I love this. And he, and he's, but he's kind of starting out with a lot of turnover. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's, I think it is going to take some time to get everything settled again, which maybe that's fine because you know, if your offense stays, I mean, we'll cut to the chase here. This is a 30 second rank schedule by three different places. I think I read. I'm not that low. I'm well. I'm at 30. I am 20. I mean, I'm not 20. You have, you have three tough games and your division isn't super easy, but you have three tough, odd, vision games. That's it. I think it's a really, really good game. I think it's a really good game. Let's get to the brass text then. This is as low as I will ever be on the Cincinnati Bengals for the year 2026 defense. 3.9 for runstop. 3.7 for pass rush. 2.5 for coverage. Where you at? All right. I am scrolling up. I am at. I'm still at it. I'm at it to. I'm at it to. Wow. I will stop. Really? I'm at it to. I'm at it to. I'm at it to. about, yeah, he's all of it right now. I mean, he's, he's, he's, all of the rating passorice. I just I really don't have high ratings for either linebacker. And I think that matters a lot, especially that how much you use, how much I wait the secondary and pass rush is pretty light too. So I'm not getting in ton of help there. But pass rush, you were at 3.7. I'm at a 3.5, I think that's coming up as well. I'm higher than you in coverage, though. I'm at 3.8. What was your number? 2.5. Okay, so I'm a little higher on coverage. We'll get into that. But the run step number, this is, I spent like an hour on this this afternoon, honestly, because it was, it was tough. It was very tough. We're basing some of it on last year. And then you flip flop the Lawrence for Hendrickson thing. That's an automatic bump. And they sign Jonathan Allen, but the, you know, the personnel only stuff. If you start looking at player grade only, it's still there's a lot of snaps in the front seven that are gonna fix for playing like we know, you know, a base nickel. There's a lot of snaps that are going to bad run defenders. And, you know, I start looking at like the team unit pairs that I look at from the last few years. And how much you can use these individual player grades. And especially when there's no continuity, it just translates really poorly, especially to start. So I'm gonna be incredibly low here. And it's starting to start up for me. Second worst defense. Real quick, you were lower on coverage. I'd like to hear your take on this, but like the um, Dougher's good depth when you're my santa. Like I said, like I like, I'm not I don't care about. I'm I'm I'm basing my coverage number on six guy out there. He's gonna play it. - Okay. - Okay, you're probably right actually. I'm basically my coverage number on Hill, Turner, and Jalen Davis, and they are getting penalized pretty aggressively for sample size, and just some of the kind of team bad numbers from the team from the first half of the year, which might not be real. So again, like as the new data comes in this season, like this unit is almost certainly going up or staying staying where they are. Right, like there's, I don't, - It's funny just the next thing I'm about to say. - Yeah, they're the, they're the AFC Cowboys. - No, that as I started to try to figure out how much of prior season results to use for teams and players, coverage, anything coverage was the least predictive and sticky from year to year. - Okay. - Out of anything on either side of the ball. - Okay. - And to the point where I had to start lowering, I didn't have to, I chose to. I chose to start lowering the percentage of last year's stuff I used. And I mean, you're right, it's some smaller samples on some of these guys. You know, your depth is a third round rookie and one spot, but I like Jalen Davis. I'm going to say that he's gonna continue into a send that like Turner, like Battle, like Dex Hill, that said, it's still a 3.8. Reading the blow average as a whole, I'm not going out on a limb and saying, this is a good secondary. I'm just higher than you here. - Yeah, Jalen Davis has been in the NFL forever. So his number, I'm stuck on a low number. Starting from him, even though the, what we saw from him when he was out there last year was really good. Same kind of thing with Dex Hill, same kind of thing with DJ Turner. Like, you know, there's a pretty, there's a pretty big sample that they're gonna have to overcome with, recency, good. And if they do, and if this defense is league average, then this Bengal team is gonna rate as a top five unit for me. Let's just say that they end up with fives across the board after they get a couple weeks of data. - They're right behind the Bills and Ramson. - Yeah, that's right there. - They're best team in the league. - Yeah, I'm up in more like the sixth best, but yeah, I mean, you're in really good shape if this isn't. - I mean, they'd be right up there with Ravens, so Lion. - Yes. - So, excited to bet on them. What's your general opinion? - What are we doing? - Let's take a look at, let's take a look at our last couple numbers and see what we ended up on this team completely. - All right, so. - On the old chart. So, especially teams, I'm a little higher than you in coaching. I went neutral on it just because I don't hate Zach Taylor. I'm kind of Zach Taylor agnostic. I gave it a little bump because I talked myself and they all go in the little, you have continuity, which is nice 'cause that is not something, as we mentioned numerous times, they're like 20 new OCs, 13 new DCs this year. So, having any sort of continuity across the top of your coaching roster is a plus for me. And then special teams is such a small thing. I don't know if we, Evan McPherson, good, Reckow decent, Charlie Jones, I think it's gonna be a return or with Perine and Yoshivasa's options. Above average. - I'm low on Taylor only 'cause I don't really love his fourth down decision making these consistently been below league average in terms of his go rate when he should be going for more with the offense he has in particular. So, that's the only thing I got on and that takes him down to a 3.8 for me. My net Bengals power number is a plus 2.12. You're a plus 1.31. Again, the way I do my power numbers I go up set aside a whole time when we talk about that 'cause a lot of people are asking, if you have, I up wait offense when I come up with a fair for a game relative to defense. And so if you have a good offense you're gonna get more wind in your sale from me than if you have a good defense in terms of what is a fair rating against a neutral team on a neutral field. - No, I've done it three different ways now. So the first, 'cause we got a little time here, the first way was, and we talked about it prior to last season when we started doing this was, turning your percentile into a wind percentage. So if you're 64th percentile team, you are winning 64% of your games against a neutral team or remember that, yeah. - Or you're scoring. So then we just basically turned it into a money line. - Yeah. - And at that point it was a good strategy. - That was a good strategy. - So I did that and I just basically had to build out a chart because it's not linear from zero to, so I had to build out a chart. - No, super flat in the middle, right? - Yeah, so I built up like a thousand line reference chart to just pull from just straight up if you look up. And then I did it a slightly different way based on that and then I did a Z score where you're dividing by the slope and getting to, and honestly I might just average the three. (laughing) - See what I come up with, it'll be fun to play with. - I did that a little. - And again, here's the thing. I think they're all good enough. As long as you're consistent, your numbers relative to each other, it's gonna be, you know, nothing ever is gonna be black box richest. Hey, I make this four with my, my, you know, my spreadsheet here. It's three, I should bet it. I don't think either of us does that, where it's just like, hey, we're auto betting. Anything we show an edge on, it's just kind of a signal that, man, it's a good thing. - Yeah, what's the big side? - Yeah. All right, well, for the most part, I'm carrying it forward in the same way I would, you know, like, when I would come up with a fair for a game, I'm doing it the same way, but I'm pretending their opponent is a 50/50, you know, 50% offence and 50% off defense. And then I'm coming up with, well, what is my expected score difference? And in this case, the Bengals, I would expect to score 2.1, more points, which is why there are plus 2.1. That is good enough for 13th for me in the NFL. And it is over market, market for the Bengals is a 1.5. - What is your defense of percentile? I miss that part. - 33rd. - 32, so we're not too far off there. - Yeah. And again, like, only one way to go. I'll golden, take us up. In general, as, yeah, like, waking up in the Bengals being rated as a plus 4 plus 5 even is not out of the wrong possibility at all. If this defense turns out to be better than expected, if you have a player as good as Dexter Lawrence, I don't see why you shouldn't expect that. I don't know, man, it feels like a safe bet to be a Dexter Lawrence stand this year, at least. I think he's gonna matter. - Just one burrow, say healthy, for the love of Pete. - I know. - Let's look at schedule. As you mentioned, it is easy. The Bengals play no one except their two games against Baltimore and against Houston. I guess later in the season that match against the Chiefs once you have an idea. - Can I have a wild healthy home? - This will be fun. - Yeah, yeah. You get the New Year's Eve game against, that's fun. New Year's Eve Ravens Bengals, who needs a date in a kiss. I'm just gonna watch, I'm gonna watch Thursday and at football. You do end as a lot of these teams to Division Division. The tough games are division games, and then essentially you have two other tough games that's at Texans. Feels like a really tough ask early in the season. And then your other one would be the Kansas City Chiefs at home late. We'll see how good they play and how sturdy mohoms is and ever know, maybe that's not a super tough game and that kind of defaults the Ravens games to your next toughest. You can probably point to the international spot as a tough game, even though it's Atlanta, who's not expected to be very good, but it is an international travel spot that isn't gonna be super easy for a year. You had to Madrid in week nine, one little caveat to the schedule is, you have a late buy. - But, excuse me, if the early buy. Excuse me, the early buy. - Yeah. - Yeah. - So. - And then you gotta play the Steelers coming off of there by off you get home from your Madrid flight. Not ideal. - Yeah. So you do get a few extra hours, 'cause it's at night, but a couple, three standalone games in a row, Atlanta in Madrid, Sunday night football at the hated Steelers, and then the Washington Commandos in Primetime and Monday night football, you don't play another one until that New Year's game and Baltimore, at home versus Baltimore. Although there's a lot of one o'clock games, especially to start the season, a lot of winnable games early, even if that is a bit of a scheduled loss against Houston. - Let's talk about the game. You're interior probably isn't gonna hold up all that great that day against that pass rush. We'll see how that game goes. You never know, you could upscore them at Houston early in the season stuff, but even if you drop that one, you know how damn nice shot it four and one. - What do you think of that matchup a little more detail? I like what you said, the pass run, rush for Houston could certainly cause Cincinnati a problem. But when she said Houston's past rush is better. It's like more of an edge rush. It's more and it's more edge, but they move people around as well and they have enough edges where you can have, hey, I mean, there's plenty of teams. You just put three edges out there at a time. So if they, yeah, the matchup of Chase versus Stingley is absolutely awesome. Yeah, even Higgins versus Lasser is awesome. It's got a lot of strength on strength. And I think how you win it is good. Your defense of front evolves quicker than you'd hoped. And you're able to attack that offensive line because it's still, that's still attackable for Houston. So you're winning that game. If you're winning that game, it's like, you need a low-scaling game. It's like 27 to go in there. Yeah. Yeah. If you're giving up points to Houston, you're dead. Agreed. And then you're, you know, you're open for wins because you do have to play in Pittsburgh, but it's early in the season. At least it's not terrible weather there quite yet. Not that you don't play in a terrible weather city too. Not as bad. Since Nanny technically, by the way, guys, is the South. As you can stand there and look across the street at the, or the river into Kentucky. So basically the South, it does get a little chilly there. But those are winnable games early on. Depends how angry Baker is at that point. Maybe he gets over to the middle in the preseason. But yeah, that's the other thing too. You could go one and four. That's a, that's not a push over Tampa Bay. That's a team with a good quarterback. They can meet you. Pittsburgh is a division rival on the road. And we have a lot of respect for what Jacksonville's doing as well. So disaster scenario is you're looking for your first win there. And Miami and you beat the ever-living shit out of that team, which would be fun too. I think maybe that's the scenario either way. I'm not sure a warma would be mid October. At least it's not September, but it still is a road game at Miami. Yeah. You don't have a sunshine on it. So I'm going to assume it'll be okay at that point of the year. Yeah, the Miami Heat in the middle of October is not more than 25 degrees below the expected temperatures. And Cincinnati that time here. Andy, for your edification, Cincinnati is south of the Mason Dixon line. I wonder if kids even know what that is. The kids learn stuff anymore. Riddle, I'm going to quiz you on two other NFL cities. Indianapolis. North. Barely by the by a by a hair, a chin here. Kansas City. South. South. Yes. Very good. Yeah. So I did. I did a whole NFL civil war scenario. Again, it went poorly for the South mostly because of having the NFC South. That was that was kind of what held them back there. Okay. Denver. To Denver's probably South people forget how far South Denver is. I think Denver South. Trick question. It is on the Mason Dixon line. It is on the line. I think you're going to go to the third decimal point. It's north, but high by much. That's always one of my favorite trivia part. I live in Southern Minnesota. I can get to I can get to Iowa in like 20 minutes. If I really speed for for you, people are envisioning the state. But I am further north than Toronto. That's awesome. I don't have anymore. I guess that's it for that's it for geography guys. Stay for Cisco. Even though it's in northern California is South of the Mason Dixon line. All right, man. Well, let's I don't have anything other thoughts on the schedule. And then this is a putting soft schedule. Broadly. Especially when we get to the Baltimore Raven schedule next. Again, both the Ravens and the Bengals have significantly easier schedules than the Steelers. Because Steelers got the number one schedule. But the number two teams that the Ravens drew are hard. The number three teams that the Bengals drew are easy. It is it's the you know the ingredients are not dubious and they're all in the pot for the Bengals to set themselves up for a playoff appearance this year. And that first in a game in week 17 could be if the Bengals over achieve. Because right now that you know, there's still that's for the division. That could be for the division in prime time week 17 or at least setting up. Hey, here's a scenario where all teams can be like it could be a de facto change. It's just a shame we've never had any good games between. Since that he's not more. It's just shame. Oh, fuck I'm excited for that one. Let me ask you this. Two teams that I have somewhat similarly power rated are the Texans and the Bengals. I don't know if you've caught weight of this, but the Texans are like a weird everybody's darling pick to be contrarian in the AFC. Have you caught one to that? Yeah. I'm not imagining that. Am I? There's too many good AFC teams. There's too many good AFC quarterbacks for me to really buy that. So that was where I was going to ask you. If you had two similarly rated teams like the Texans and the Bengals, to me the Texans are a high floor team because their defense is just going to be good because they have so many good peak personnel is so outstanding. But the high ceiling team is the Bengals because this could be the best offensive football. Yeah, if I could be the MVP. Like that wouldn't shock anyone. Shouldn't shock anyone. So you're saying I have money and I'm going to spend it on an AFC? Well, yeah, don't you still you swing? I mean price. If the prices are the same either way, you got to make a choice. Where are you going? I take it and I put on Denver. I'm excited to talk you off of Denver. I've already bet them. I don't give a shit. I'm really. Yeah, but I mean just like AFC and a few outlier prices. I just think they have a long tail to the over. Because I don't think you need. I'm not sure you need like a really, really good quarterback to win up there. I think you have the one of the smartest side coaches. We'll get to them. I think perception on Denver is a little bit backwards. People are like, oh god, that defense is best in the NFL. It's going to be so good again. I think the offense is probably more of the important part of the equation there. And I think it's good. I think it has scope to be very good. Which is probably why you want to bet on Denver if anything. I'm not going to talk to you out of Denver. But I think I'm not going to talk to you out of Denver. I'm just I don't I don't think that the that the kind of current market perception is correct on Denver. And there's going to be a way to take advantage of that by playing like overs on Denver. Any you. All right, man. Our I mentioned back around the time of the schedule release. Once I kind of understood the sequencing was pretty favorable for them. I bet some Bengals up 30 to 1 when the Super Bowl. That's drifted. I mean, that's come in a lot. So I don't think I would play it at the current price, which is well like 21-ish. Do you have any other skin in the game for this Bengals team? Or are you just going to bet them game by game, depending on how the defense improves? Yeah, it'll be a game by game thing. The the features have been beat down a little bit. It's 21-20. 2011 some of the 30 prices. BRO MVP is short of 10. A lot of places. Chase is, you know, I did make an OPOI play. Not on Chase. I played Puka. Zach Taylor. Zach Taylor coach of the year would be one of the only things I could bet. What's that number? It's like 25 to 1. I see 36 to 1. Okay. So even better. This is just, you know, this has just been grabbing some overscript for the show and trying to find something to make a case for. This is the only thing I have. AFC1 seed plus 650. He is coming off a six win season. And if they win 12 or 13 games because the schedule's easy, they win this division. They're the one seed. He's very much in contention and he's a pretty fair chunk of a price, I think. So. Okay. Hey, he was on the hot seat. The only one six games. Oh, look what he's done. Now we all love him. We should vote for him. And you don't have, you don't have Rossini in there screwing up the vote anymore. So I think it's not a bad. If you like the Bengals, I think you should have a little bit of Taylor coach. You're an in pocket. You, uh, uh, you missed what I maybe I said there. The price for the Bengals to be the one seed is plus 650. Yeah, that's, I would rather bet that Taylor than. That's a silly. Right? That's a big disconnect. Yeah, I mean, the big. Take a little, take a little of both just in case some other coach wins, you know, in case. They just give it to make fade because he has a perfect season. Maybe he can't uh, 16 in one Ramstein. What are you going to not give it to him? But, Zach Taylor coach of the year slash one seed. I think there's some upside plays he can make on this team. Hmm, that's fun. All right, I like that. They're, they've been being down to 1889. at the at Chris for Superbule. I think that's fair. there, 848 for the AFC. Texans see, this is it, man. 848 for the Bengals, 840 for the Texans right now to win the AFC. I think, Gun to head, give me the Bengals with the potential for hitting their ceiling offensively and being a problem with this easy schedule. So, all right, yeah, cautious optimism on Cincinnati for us. And tune in week three as we handicap Joe Flacco, I guess the Pittsburgh Steelers. (laughing) - Are you flung me, Ricky Pally? (laughing) - I mean Houston Week 2 is kind of a bad draw for keeping Barrow healthy, right? If you're drawing up that game plan, you're getting the ball out of his hands in like five seconds or less. - Yeah, that's full on my. - Yeah, the Patriots play off that play off game plan they put together. - Yeah, that's exactly.