The Bengals, of course, advanced to the Super Bowl earlier this year, falling to the Rams. But leading up to that, throughout the playoffs and over the final month of the season, their only loss was to the Browns in a meaningless Week 18 game in which Zac Taylor rested all his top players.
In other words, they were legit.
They scored 84 more points than they allowed. The offense produced 0.4 more yards every time they snapped the ball than their defense allowed on a per snap basis -- only nine teams were better. And while both the Bengals and Steelers, who'll meet Sunday in Cincinnati for the 2022 season opener, were 4-2 within the AFC North last year, the Bengals dominated both head-to-head meetings, sweeping by a combined score of 65-20.
That being said ...
The Bengals did end up playing the NFL’s third-easiest schedule last year.
And they were amongst the healthiest teams on both sides of the ball.
And, while this might not seem like a big deal, they had excellent “Field Goal Luck” with their opponents making just 74% of their field goal attempts.
And their offense faced the easiest slate of pass defenses in all of football last year.
Look, by no means should you think that this is not an exceptional passing attack led by Joe Burrow. If you recall this time last year, Burrow was questionable for Week 1 and was coming off a massive knee injury. Wisely, the Bengals ran the ball a pretty high percentage of the time to take some of the offensive load off their second-year quarterback.
But after Week 15, including the postseason, they threw 62% of the time on early downs. For reference, the Buccaneers led the NFL by throwing the ball 63% of the time on early downs during the 2021 regular season and playoffs. Once once they started to really sling it, Burrow became a monster. He finished with the NFL’s best completion percentage as well as the league’s best yards per completion. In the final two regular-season games, he threw for 981 yards and eight touchdowns.
Think about that for a minute. Not only was Burrow completing an elite percentage of his pass attempts, but they were producing elite yardage, as well, with 63 plays of 20-plus yards.
Tactically, this is an offense that lives in 11 Personnel with three wide receivers, a running back and a tight end, who is often asked to block. Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins both eclipsed 1,000 receiving yards with Chase, the NFL’s Offensive Rookie of the Year, setting the rookie receiving yardage record.
Only three pass catchers had more receiving yards than Chase last year, who finished the season averaging 2.51 yards every time he went out on a pass route, which was fifth-best in football. Deebo Samuel was the only receiver in the league who averaged more yards per catch than Chase, who is an elite runner with the football regardless of position.
Watch Chase after the catch on this play against the Chiefs. After gaining instant separation in his route, Chase gives Burrow a big target with his shoulders square to the line of scrimmage and, as usual, Burrow delivers a very accurate ball.
But what happens next is rare:
Chase flips his hips instantly and immediately becomes a huge threat with the ball in his hands. Not only is Chase extremely impressive as an accelerator, but he also is a very powerful strider. He is never touched once on this play.
Higgins is a great player in his own right, but much more of a contested-catch specialist. He can control the congested middle of the field, dominate one-on-one situations near the sidelines, as well as go up and get the football in the red zone. He would be the top receiving option for more than half of the teams in the league. These two are complemented by Clairton native Tyler Boyd, a tough guy out of the slot.
Joe Mixon is clearly the Bengals' top back, but there are times in which the Bengals take him off the field in passing situations despite his excellent receiving skills. Still, Jonathan Taylor and Nick Chubb were the only two players with more rushing yards than Mixon for the year.
Mixon and Burrow should benefit greatly from the Bengals' offseason offensive line additions. Three new starters were brought in at center, right guard and right tackle, leaving just the left guard spot as a problem area for the Bengals. And they can only be better. Despite Mixon’s great abilities, the Bengals still rushed for only 4.0 yards per carry, and Burrow was the NFL’s most sacked quarterback despite getting the football out of his hands at a quicker-than-league-average rate.
The Bengals have a very solid and well-coached defense that can morph from week to week or throughout a game depending on the opponent. If you recall, in their playoff matchup, Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs offense was night and day from the first half to the second against Lou Anarumo’s defense in a game that ended the Chiefs' season. And the Bengals used their first-round pick on Dax Hill, another extremely talented and versatile defender.
The Bengals had the 11th-most sacks in the league last year, but blitzed at the seventh lowest rate. Trey Hendrickson led the way with 14 sacks in his first year in Cincinnati and has 27.5 sacks over the past two years. They got home consistently with four pass-rushers and allowed Anarumo to often drop seven or even eight into coverage, a tactic they often used against Mahomes.
Here is Hendrickson getting his 10th straight game with a sack last year:
His get-off is simply superb on this play, as is his tenacity to keep coming and coming against the Broncos' left tackle, who not only lost the matchup at the snap but also the leverage battle.
Like the Steelers, this defense often has a ball-hawking free safety, Jessie Bates in this case, in the middle of the deep patrol to clean up mistakes and drive on long balls from opposing quarterbacks.
The Bengals return its top 10 players from last year in defensive snap counts and 14 of their top 15, as well as adding Hill to the equation. Larry Ogunjobi is the only major loss from a defense that gave up the seventh most passing yards per game in 2021, but also the fifth fewest rushing yards on a per game basis.
Maintaining success in this league, something the Steelers have proven highly capable of, is very difficult and is the mark of a truly strong NFL franchise.
This is a pivotal year for Taylor, who decided to basically rest all his top offensive players in the preseason, including Burrow, who is coming off appendectomy surgery and has yet to have a healthy offseason in a Cincinnati uniform.
Let’s see if the Bengals can keep it up. They sure look poised to do so when just breaking down their roster, but translating that to the field doesn’t always come to fruition.