2011 Cincinnati Bengals Team Preview | NFL Predictions
In 2010, the defending AFC North champions endured a 10-game losing streak and went 1-7 on the road, not exactly a recipe for a repeat division title.
2011 Cincinnati Bengals Team Preview/Predictions
2010 Record: 4-12
ATS Record: 7-9
After an eight-year run in which he’s had only two winning seasons, Cincinnati coach Marvin Lewis will somehow get another shot at greatness in the Queen City.
When you’re one of the first five teams drafting in the NFL draft, you don’t normally have all the talent that the Bengals have. Defensively, the front seven is above par especially considering the fact that Cincinnati got excellent production from defensive end Carlos Dunlap.
However, the issue for Dunlap and most of the Bengals is that while he has talent spilling out of his ears, he also has character issues shooting through the roof. Dunlap is just one of many players who have turned the tiger stripes on the Bengals’ helmets into prison bars.
Dhani Jones and Keith Rivers are some other key contributors for the Cincinnati defense, even though Jones is a guy who may not have very many productive years left. The Bengals had boasted one of the best cornerback tandems in football with Jonathan Joseph and Leon Hall.
However, Joseph was a free agent and the Bengals lost him to the Houston Texans over the past month. As long as opposing offensive coordinators and quarterbacks avoid Hall on one side of the field, they should find ways to exploit the Cincinnati secondary.
One the offensive side of the pigskin, the Carson Palmer saga must end soon. Even though Owner/General Manager Mike Brown is the most stubborn owner in professional sports, it is in the best interests of the Bengals to send Palmer away for multiple draft picks and be done with it. Now, enter Andy Dalton.
The question everyone is asking around Cincinnati revolves, quite understandably, around the quarterback position. Assuming Carson Palmer never comes back, the team has rookie Andy Dalton listed as its best prospect for the starting job – the Palmer soap opera is precisely why the team tabbed Dalton in the second round of the draft this past spring. While Dalton is a nice story coming out of TCU, he is nowhere near ready for the NFL. [soliloquy id=”82219″]
It also doesn’t help that both Terrell Owens (a free agent who has still not landed with a team) and Chad Ochocinco (already gone to New England to play for the Patriots) will be out of the Queen City when the season begins.
One minor bright spot is that if the Bengals do go with Dalton under center, they have a good group of core receivers. The group is led by fourth overall draft pick A.J Green, with Jerome Simpson and Jordan Shipley offering secondary targets.
As stated earlier, the Bengals’ defense has an appreciable amount of talent, but the challenge is that it needs to mesh as a unit in order to live up to the billing. The Bengals need to get better production out of safety Roy Williams if they are going to make the leap from an average defense to one of the best.
If Williams continues to play the way he’s performed the past couple years, the Bengals might need to move him or start an overhaul if they want to compete with the other top defenses in the AFC North.
If Mike Brown continues to ignore the Carson Palmer situation, he is going to cost his franchise not only this year but also down the road.
While there is plenty of talent on this team to win games, as they showed in 2009, their problems heavily outweigh their strengths; moreover, Cincinnati’s weaknesses are at such key positions – it’s that last reality which will be especially difficult to overcome.
2011 Bengals Futures
Super Bowl Odds: +20250
Conference Odds: +8050
AFC North Odds: +805
2011-2012 NFL Regular Season Wins: Under 5.5
2011 Bengals Predictions:
Place they’ll finish in AFC North: 4th
Place they’ll finish in AFC Conference: 15th
Over/Under Wins Prediction: UNDER
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