Cincinnati Bengals: 5 bold predictions for the 2019 season

Despite a good effort early, the Cincinnati Bengals find that the talent gap between themselves and the other three teams in the AFC North won’t be closed without a significant shake-up within the organization. As such, 2019 is the season that allows for a shot at one of the young quarterbacks they will be available early in the 2020 NFL Draft.

It’s time. The Bengals are at that place a lot of teams get when the previous blueprint no longer applies. Taylor is the future, and youth eventually replaces veterans who have finally reached the finish line in Cincinnati.

The potential for a franchise-type quarterback will be available when the Bengals draft in the top 3 next spring. As the Taylor era ramps up to a new and fresh kind of football beyond what fans got a glimpse of in 2019, Cincinnati will work at closing that obvious talent gap to compete beyond a second division kind of finish.

Without question, the North has gotten exponentially better whereas the Bengals have probably held on too long to the past. Taylor has some talent, but eventually in this league, it boils down to the number of playmakers you have versus your opponent. In 2019, the Bengals will be on the other side of that argument in the majority of games they play. Bottom line, the upcoming season is likely to show that Cincinnati simply doesn’t have the horses to compete as a playoff-caliber type of team. They can address that more aggressive in Taylor’s second season.