Cincinnati beat Miami and took its bye at 3-2, and our model has the Bengals at ten wins with Baltimore and Pittsburgh both ahead of them
Updated
Cincinnati went to Miami, won 31-24, and took its bye at 3-2. The Bengals have beaten Tampa Bay, Houston and Miami and lost to Pittsburgh and Jacksonville, which is a team that has beaten the teams it should and lost to the ones that matter. When we ran the rest of the season Cincinnati came out at 10-7 with a 57 percent playoff chance and a one and a half percent title chance, down from 10.4 wins and 75.5 percent two weeks ago and from 12.4 wins and eight percent title odds in July. The slide has been slow and steady, and the model has not found a reason to stop it.
The offense is still very good on paper and the receivers are the reason it is not better on the field. Joe Burrow is 135 of 189 for 1,361 yards with eleven touchdowns and three interceptions, a 104 rating, and projects for 5,029 yards and 35 touchdowns, which is still the most passing yards in the league by projection. Tee Higgins has 27 catches for 423 yards in five games and projects for 90 catches and 1,332 yards. Ja'Marr Chase projects for 109 catches and 1,313. Both numbers have slipped a few catches since the concussion and adductor injuries in Week 4. Mike Gesicki projects for ten touchdowns. Chase Brown projects for 644 rushing yards and 66 catches, which is the model still treating the ground game as a dump-off game. The unit projects for 421 points, sixth in the league.
The defense has given up 109 points in five games and the model has it as a middling unit with an elite front. Cincinnati projects to allow 374 points, 18th in the league, and the pass rush is still the strength: Boye Mafe at eleven projected sacks, Myles Murphy at ten, Dexter Lawrence at nearly ten, and the team at 47, seventh in football. The back end is the problem. Jordan Battle's interception projection has doubled to over four, which is the one bright line. Bryan Cook's tackle projection has dropped from 116 to 102. Barrett Carter projects for 83 tackles and over two sacks. The Bengals project for under ten interceptions, 25th.
The division has gotten away from Cincinnati and the model says so plainly. Pittsburgh is 4-2 and projects for eleven wins with six percent title odds. Baltimore is 4-2 and projects for ten with Lamar Jackson possibly back this week. Cleveland is 4-2 and projects for eight. The Bengals are a half-game back of all three, have lost to the Steelers, and play the Ravens twice and the Steelers again. When we ran the rest of the season Cincinnati won the AFC North in a small minority of simulated years and reached the playoffs as a wild card more often than as the division winner.
The next month is where the season gets decided. A trip to Baltimore at 34 percent, Tennessee at home at 78, a trip to Atlanta at 50, and Pittsburgh at home at 44. When we ran that stretch Cincinnati went 2-2 more often than anything else, with the Titans game won and the Ravens game lost. A 5-4 record entering the second week of November would keep ten wins on schedule. A 4-5 record with losses to both Baltimore and Pittsburgh would end the division conversation.
The Miami game was the only one the Bengals played in the fortnight and it was the kind of game that does not move a projection: a 31-24 win on the road over an 0-4 team, with the defense giving up 24 to an offense that had scored 46 in four games. The model gave Cincinnati 84 percent in it. The bye did more than the game. Higgins and Chase both missed practice time with the adductor and concussion before the break and both appear to be past it, and their projections dropped only a few catches each, which is the model expecting them to play the rest of the way. Burrow's yardage projection dropped 270 and his touchdown projection held at 35, which is the model expecting fewer throws rather than worse ones. The defense moved the most, from 353 projected points allowed to 374, and that is the Miami game: 24 points to a Dolphins offense is not a result a 16th-ranked defense should produce. Battle's interception projection doubling is the one bright line on that side. What moves the number from here is Sunday in Baltimore, with Lamar Jackson possibly back. The model gives the Bengals 34 percent. A win puts Cincinnati at 4-2 and level with the division's three leaders. A loss puts them a game and a half back with two of the three holding tiebreakers.
The matchup record is a team that has lost its two coin flips. We gave Cincinnati 84 percent against Tampa Bay, 54 in Houston, 46 in Pittsburgh, 48 against Jacksonville and 84 in Miami. Three wins from about three and a sixth expected is right on the projection, and the two losses were the two games the model had closest to even. The market opened Cincinnati at eleven wins. Our model sat a win and a half over it in July and sits a win under it now. The gap is a defense that cannot cover and two division rivals that have played better football for six weeks.
