2 teams on Bengals 2023 schedule that don't look as daunting through first 3 weeks

Minnesota Vikings

Last year, the Vikings managed to win the NFC North but once again disappointed in the playoffs and were bounced from the dance early. The thought this year was that a lot of the pieces were still there for the Vikings to be a good team but they have not delivered to this point and sit at 0-3.

With that 0-3 record, the Vikings' chances of getting into the playoffs again are slim. There have been rumblings that they could trade Kirk Cousins and if Cousins is gone, there's little hope for Minnesota to win many more games this year. They'd likely be tanking for Caleb Williams at that point.

While the Bengals and Vikings don't square off until Week 15, which is in mid-December, the chances of the Vikings being the daunting team they were in the 2022 season seem unlikely. If Cousins is traded, that game will go from being an intimidating one before the season began, to likely being an easy Bengals victory.

Teams enter the season with big expectations all the time and sometimes, something goes awry and the team is no longer as scary as they once were. For the Vikings, they've competed in all three of their games to this point but have been on the wrong side of all of them. For the Jaguars, they simply haven't been playing well.

It's still early in the season but these two teams definitely aren't scaring the Bengals after three weeks of action.