Bengals Schedule: 5 games that absolutely must be in primetime in 2022

5. Any of the AFC North Opponents

Okay, this might be a cop-out, but I don’t really care. Any of the other three AFC North opponents would provide a solid primetime opponent for the reigning AFC and AFC North champion Bengals.

A season ago, the good guys went 4-2 in the division, sweeping the likes of the Ravens and Steelers while getting swept by the Browns. Beating up on the Ravens had to feel good for both the Bengals players and the fans, as Baltimore had been having its way with the stripes in recent years.

The Steelers did have Cincy’s number for a long time but the Bengals are now winners of three straight against them. That also felt good seeing the black and orange dominate those silly Steelers twice last season.

Cleveland was the only team in the division to take down the mighty Bengals and while I really hate including the Week 18 game due to Cincy resting their starters, it counted as a loss in the record books. The Browns straight-up whooped the stripes in their Week 9 meeting so there’s no excuse for that.

Any of these opponents would make excellent primetime games because as we saw last year, anything can happen in the AFC North. We’ll likely see at least one Bengals primetime game come against a divisional opponent, but who will it be and where will it be held?