Ranking Bengals 2021 season schedule by opponent difficulty

Ranking Bengals Opponents by Difficulty

9. Las Vegas Raiders (Week 11)

After their Week 10 bye, the Bengals head to Las Vegas for the first time in franchise history. The Raiders are a really tough team to peg because their offense has the ability to be one of the best in the league but their defense is so awful. Seriously, go back and look at the stats from the Raiders’ final few games last year and see for yourself how bad their defense was.

Derek Carr put up nice numbers during the 2020 season but it was all for naught, as the Raiders failed to make the playoffs after a promising first half of the season (they handed the Chiefs one of their two regular-season losses, for what it’s worth). The Bengals are fortunate that this game follows the bye week but playing in Vegas in front of fans who didn’t get to be there a year ago will make it difficult.

This one will come down to whichever defense can make a play. It’ll be a shootout in Vegas more than likely but if one team’s defense can make a stop, that will probably be the team that wins the ball game.