With NFL football just another day away, I think it’s important to take stock of some of the story lines as we move into week 7. First off, I want to point out that the AFC North has three teams sitting with four wins. The Ravens, Steelers, and Bengals are all vying for the top spot in the North. While the first two teams on that list aren’t surprising, the Bengals have shocked us all. In fact, This Given Sunday unanimously voted them as the worst team in the NFL going into the season.
The Bengals, in fact, should be considered the most pleasant surprise of the season thus far. There’s still a lot of football to play; so, I don’t want to hand them a playoff spot just yet. That being said, they’ve been playing very good football. No small part of that has been Andy Dalton. He’s completing 62.4% of his passes, and he’s throwing less interceptions, 5, than he is touchdowns, 7. For comparison’s sake, Mark Sanchez is completing just 54.7% of his passes, and he has thrown 5 interceptions and 7 touchdowns this season. And oh-by-the-way, the Jets are perceived to have a better team; although, that statement is beginning to look like it just might not be as true as we originally thought it was.
The Bengals haven’t only been helped out by their rookie quarterback, however. Their defense has risen to the top tier of the NFL. Currently, they’re ranked number two in yards allowed per game, behind the Pittsburgh Steelers. While the Bengals have struggled at times this season offensively, their defense has been able to keep them in football games, and in some cases, slam the door on their opponents. That’s something they couldn’t do very often during the Carson Palmer era, and it’s something that separates great teams from good teams.
As I said earlier, the Bengals haven’t won anything yet. They are 4-2, and they get they’re getting their bye this weekend. They’ll square off against the Seattle Seahawks in week 8, and there’s no reason they shouldn’t push their record to 5-2. Following that game, however, they hit a rough stretch of their schedule playing the Titans, Steelers, and Ravens in consecutive weeks. That’s when we’ll find out if this team has been a contender or a pretender all along. We’ll almost certainly revisit this topic at that date, but if you’re a Bengals fan, you can’t be anything but ecstatic about how this season has gone so far.
