Bengals Schedule: 3 quick takeaways from 2022 regular-season slate
The Cincinnati Bengals schedule is out for the 2022 season and there’s a lot to take away from the 17-game slate. Let’s hit on some of the major takeaways.
After coming up just short of winning their first-ever Super Bowl title, the Cincinnati Bengals know what their path to making it back to the playoffs looks like, thanks to the NFL releasing this year’s regular-season schedule
With the schedule out in the open, here are some quick takeaways to be had.
BYE week comes at the perfect time
Sometimes teams can have a BYE as early as Week 3 in some seasons and some teams will have them as late as Week 14 this year. The Bengals, fortunately, have theirs at the best possible time in Week 10.
With this Week 10 BYE, the Bengals get an extra week of rest before heading to Pittsburgh for a primetime date with their divisional foes.
Every road AFC North game is in primetime
This was actually something that I missed at first glance but it’s true — Every time the Bengals hit the road to face one of their AFC North foes, they’ll do so under the bright lights of primetime.
It starts with a Week 5 Sunday night showdown in Baltimore, then they’ll travel to the Dawg Pound for a Monday night date with the Browns in Week 8, and then in Week 11, they’ll face the Steelers on Sunday Night Football at Heinz Field.
The division is already tough enough as is, but facing all three divisional opponents on the road in primetime is making this division even tougher to win in 2022.
Brutal late-season stretch
After the Bengals’ BYE in Week 10, they’ll head to Pittsburgh for a Sunday night game against the Steelers and that marks the start of an incredibly brutal stretch for the reigning AFC champs. After that game, they’ll play the Titans, Chiefs, Browns, Buccaneers, Patriots, Bills, and Ravens to close out the season. Those are listed in order.
That’s an unbelievably difficult slate of games, as they’ll face the reigning No. 1 seed in the AFC, a team that’s hosted the past four AFC title games, a team with a promising quarterback, a team with arguably the BEST quarterback of all-time, Bill Belichick, a Super Bowl favorite, and a division rival that puts up a fight no matter what in their final seven games. Yeesh.
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Those are the quick takeaways to be had from Cincinnati’s 2022 schedule. What other takeaways do you have about the schedule?