We are all guilty of going through the Cincinnati Bengals schedule and marking it with Ws and Ls is an oversimplification. This is true for any NFL schedule. Less than two months out from the regular season, you can put games into mental columns.
The Bengals have won six total games in the last two seasons. The roster remains imperfect. Still, it has improved enough so that the Bengals should at the very least graduate from pushover status in 2021.
Thus, there are games like Cincinnati’s first two against the Vikings and Bears that can be described as “coinflips.” There are other games like division tilts against Super Bowl-caliber rosters like Baltimore and Cleveland that fall in the “likely losses” category. The vast majority of the Bengals’ schedule can be put in these two groups.
Also, an offense with a healthy Joe Burrow and established threats like Tyler Boyd, Tee Higgins, and Joe Mixon becomes all the more difficult to handle with the addition of incoming rookie Ja’Marr Chase. That group is more than enough for Cincinnati to win some of those coinflip games on offense alone.
There is a third category: Games that a team “should win.” If the Bengals can’t win these four games, it doesn’t bode well for the rest of the schedule.
Must-Win Games for Cincinnati Bengals: Week 4 vs. Jacksonville
In Week 4, the Bengals will take part in their lone primetime game of the 2021 season. It’ll come against the Jaguars, who were one of the few teams worse than the Bengals in 2020.
The Jaguars took Trevor Lawrence with the No. 1 pick and while Lawrence is a fantastic talent, he is a rookie on a painfully bad team. Jacksonville will also be traveling on a short week (this game is on Thursday Night Football) to play in front of a surely rocking Bengals crowd as the first Ring of Honor class is inducted. Jacksonville also has a rookie NFL head coach in Urban Meyer.
Whether it is trying to hire a strength coach with abuse allegations or bringing in Tim Tebow to play a position he has never played before after being out of football for nearly a decade, Meyer sure looks like a fish out of water.
The Bengals are one of many teams poised to take advantage of yet another doormat like the Jaguars team in 2021. This is a game Cincinnati has to win or the heat will be dialed up when it comes to Zac Taylor’s future as the head coach of the team.
Must-Win Games for Cincinnati Bengals: Week 6 at Detroit
With a Super Bowl start and a career passer rating of just over 91 to his name, new Lions quarterback Jared Goff can win in a lot of situations but faces an uphill battle with the Lions.
- Dan Campbell is a non-interim head coach for the first time. His cringeworthy introductory press conference has to worry Lions fans about what kind of coach he’ll be when the season gets underway.
- The receiving group lacks any kind of proven threat.
- Most importantly, the defense gave up the most points in the NFL last year. It is nearly impossible to fix that in one offseason.
Adding Goff and some draft picks was a good move for the rebuilding Lions but this team isn’t going to scare anyone in 2021. The Bengals might not be a lock to win in most of their games this year but this is one game that they have to win or Taylor’s job security should be hanging by a thread (and rightfully so).
The Bengals offense could have lots of fun on Oct. 17th when they head to the Motor City for a date with the Lions. It’s also worth noting that the schedule heats up a little bit after this game so the Bengals need all of the W’s they can get.
Must-Win Games for Cincinnati Bengals: Week 8 at New York Jets
Like the Jaguars, the Jets have a rookie head coach and quarterback. Unlike Meyer though, Robert Saleh has a mostly NFL background and there’s been far less drama as he adjusts to the job.
For Jets fans, rookie quarterback Zach Wilson represents the same hope Joe Burrow did for the Bengals last year. But this year is the first of a total rebuild for the Jets, which should favor the Bengals in this one, even with the game being on the road.
This is the year Cincinnati’s rebuild either takes off, or a bunch of people gets fired. That difference in where each organization is should show up here, so yes, this is a bigger game than people are giving it credit for.
The Jets could be a scrappy team this year but it all hinges on Zach Wilson and what kind of rookie season he can have. He skyrocketed up the draft boards this past year after what he did at BYU but can he keep that momentum as a member of the Jets?
It’ll be fun to see Burrow vs Wilson for the first time and maybe these two guys can lead their organizations to winning seasons and this can become a rivalry of sorts.
Must-Win Games for Cincinnati Bengals: Week 11 at Las Vegas
Quarterback Derek Carr keeps the Raiders somewhat viable, but head coach Jon Gruden and general manager Mike Mayock have made a mess of this roster. Three seasons into his second stint as Raiders head coach, Gruden’s defense has never finished better than 24th in points allowed. To make matters worse for the Raiders, much of last year’s unit returns.
Additionally, five total first-round draft picks in 2018 and 2019 have produced little to get excited about thus far, especially now that Kenyan Drake arrives in the backfield to cut into the workload of Josh Jacobs.
The roster has no depth and the top is good, not great. This could be another fun one for the Cincinnati offense but at the same time, the Raiders won’t just sit back and do nothing. Their offense can score at the drop of a hat so this could be a shootout in Sin City, as neither defense is great.
Still, this is most definitely a game that Cincinnati can score the final points and walk out of Las Vegas with a hard-earned W.
If the Bengals win these four games, that will put the fans’ minds at ease because these are winnable games. If they lose any of these, however, you better believe Zac Taylor’s job security will take an even bigger hit.