CINCINNATI — The Bengals’ offense is pretty well known when it comes to production game to game. The defense? Well, that’s a complete mystery entering the 2025 season led by new defensive coordinator Al Golden.
That volatility and how much it could swing Cincinnati’s 2025 season one way or another prompted CBS Sports writer Tyler Sullivan to pick them as the NFL’s biggest wild card.
“The Cincinnati Bengals are coming off an offseason where they inked Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins to lucrative extensions, keeping Joe Burrow’s top-two pass catchers in-house for the foreseeable future,” Sullivan wrote. “While they should be commended for that, Cincinnati still has major questions on the defensive side of the ball. The Bengals finally came to a resolution with first-round pass rusher Shemar Stewart on his rookie contract, but are still in limbo with fellow edge rusher Trey Hendrickson. Despite coming off a league-leading 17.5 season in 2024, Hendrickson has been unable to get a respectable contract extension from the Bengals, leaving his future in doubt. That casts a big question over the Bengals and their prospects of getting back into the playoffs in 2025.
“A year ago, the Bengals allowed 25.5 points per game, which ranked in the bottom third in the NFL. They were also third-worst in red zone efficiency as opposing offenses found the end zone on 67.9% of their trips into the red area. Those defensive deficiencies were the direct cause of missing the playoffs, as they were unable to win games even when the offense was piling up points. In 2024, Cincy lost six games where it scored at least 25 points (tied for the most in NFL history).”
It was a crazy outlier to see a quarterback play as well as Joe Burrow did last season and still miss the playoffs.
If Cincinnati can get minor improvement across all three levels of the defense and slot in around the 20th-most points allowed, they will be primed to compete for an AFC North title.
History says the offense will shred its matchups most of the season, getting that hallowed regression to the mean on defense will ultimately decide the ceiling of this team.
