It’s Joe Burrow season in the Jungle. The Bengals were a horrible football team last year. And for that, they were rewarded with the number one pick in the NFL Draft and picked Burrow to be their franchise QB. The Red Rifle, Andy Dalton, is gone and this is now Joey’s team. Year number 2 of the Zac Taylor experiment in Cincy. It is due to all this new, that makes me shy away from this squad.

While the offensive line has definitely improved with the Bengals – former number 1 pick, Jonah Williams is ready to play his first year after missing the entirety of his rookie campaign – they are young. That’s pretty much the theme for Cincinnati. A rookie QB, a 37-year old coach (who once met Sean McVay in an elevator!), a young offensive line (Michael Jordan and Billy Price: not made up names) and a non-threating defense anchored by veterans Carlos Dunlap and Geno Atkins. In this new coronavirus world, young and inexperienced is not going to be a winning combination.  

Burrow will have to learn a new offense that’s going to be installed by a coach without much experience in the NFL. I would go as far as to say, Taylor is one of the worst coaches in the league. I do think that towards the end of the year, you will see the Bengals get much better on offense. They have the firepower now with AJ Green coming back, Tyler Boyd, John Ross and Joe Mixon. This will have to be balanced with them being in a tough division. This is undoubtedly the worst team in the AFC North, which is home to the juggernaut Ravens, the extremely talented Browns and always solid Steelers. To further complicate matters, Cincy was 28th against the run last year, according to Football Outsiders. That’s not optimal in a division which is expected to be very run heavy.

They will be fighting an uphill battle from the beginning to get the new QB adjusted and I don’t think they could make up ground later on. 5.5 is a short number and seems easy to hurdle, however, not for this team. I won’t be betting the under either because that would mean they will effectively be the worst team in the league. I’m going to completely pass on the Bengals for any season-long plays, but I expect Mixon to be a RB1 in fantasy. They should be running a ton of plays on offense, since their D is bad and could be interesting for DFS stacks early on. I lean under for the Bengals for the year.

No Season Total Play.