Cincinnati Bengals: Why loss to the Chiefs is not necessarily a bad thing

The 38-17 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs isn’t a disaster for the Cincinnati Bengals. Here are some positives to take away from Game 1 of the exhibition season.

The Cincinnati Bengals lost pretty handily to the Kansas City Chiefs. The basic takeaways can be boiled down to the offensive line has very little depth, and the defense isn’t good enough…yet. However, let me tell you why Bengals fans should still be encouraged after watching CIN vs KC.

First, let’s start with pointing out that IT’S THE PRESEASON. The fact that the Bengals lost, makes no difference whatsoever in the evaluation of this team. Do you remember how good the Los Angeles Rams were last season? Allow me to remind you how their preseason started.

Also, do you remember the two worst teams in the history of football? The 08’ Lions & 17’ Browns combined for a preseason record of 8-0.

It’s important to realize that other than Tyler Boyd, our primary weapons on offense where Josh Malone, Auden Tate, Trayveon Williams, & Cody Core. This is essentially the second string that played to prevent exposing the starters to injury. Look at the list of superstars that were intentionally held out.

However, even though the 2nd string played tonight they performed like starters against KC’s first-string defense. Driving down the field and putting points on the board while also maintaining possession for a huge chunk of time. Was it perfect? No, but it shows that this group of young skill players is developing into legitimate threats in their own right. Just look at this catch by Auden Tate!

So whatever your opinion of this team was going into this match up with Kansas City, it should be relatively unchanged at this time. The things that analyst have said needed to be improved are still being evaluated by this coaching staff.  Try not to be too worried about the numbers on the scoreboard, and realize that what we saw on the field in Kansas City was the most basic form of what this offense will be. But it looked pretty dynamic compared to last season, so I think it’s fair to say that there is still room for improvement.

What were your takeaways from the Bengals first game of the Zac Taylor era? Let us know in the comments because we want to know what our readers are feeling, heading into this “New Dey”.