The Bengals are Real Playoff Contenders

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The Bengals are real playoff contenders, so get used to them.  Prior to the season I talked about how the ingredients were there for the Bengals to make the playoffs, but fell short on the courage to actually make it a prediction.  Through four weeks – and, hey, it’s only four weeks – the Bengals have proven themselves to be viable playoff contenders, and they are built to last.  They’re strong in the right places, and still have room for positive regression in two of the most important areas.  The Bengals are real playoff contenders, so let’s examine them further.

Strong Where It Matters

If you read my 2018 NFL season preview series, you’ll notice in each team’s capsule a heavy focus on four areas: quarterback, offensive line, pass rush, and secondary.  This isn’t an accident.  The modern NFL is a passing league, so your quarterback, pass protection, pass rush, and coverage are the four most important areas on the field.  If you’re at least solid in all four aspects, your floor is pretty high as a team.

The 2017 Eagles were the perfect example of this.  Carson Wentz was a top MVP candidate prior to his injury, and Nick Foles put on a Flacco-esque NFC title game and Super Bowl.  The Eagles also had the best offensive line and pass rush in football last year.  To bolster the quartet, the coverage was good, as Ronald Darby had a great year, Patrick Robinson was the best nickel corner in football, and the Eagles enjoyed a top flight safety duo.

The rest is window-dressing.  The Eagles didn’t sport the best receivers, the best committee of running backs, or the best linebackers.  This isn’t to say they didn’t have talented individuals at those positions, but none of them were essential to their respective side of the ball.  Alshon Jeffery is nice, but losing Fletcher Cox would be the bigger deal.  I think we can all agree on that.

Strong Where It Matters – Offense

“Onto Cincinnati.”  Andy Dalton is playing at a high level right now.  Through week four Dalton ranks 7th in DYAR, 8th in DVOA, 5th in PFF, and 11th in QBR.  I would imagine none of us consider Dalton a top ten quarterback, so it’s fair to say he is being buoyed by the environment around him.  Whatever the compounding factors may be to lead us to Dalton playing this well isn’t as important as if it is sustainable.

The sustainability of Dalton’s level of performance is in part tied to his offensive line, which is another core four area of a football team, and also one of the biggest improvement areas for the Bengals so far in 2018.  In 2017 the Bengals had one of the worst offensive lines in football, and it completely tanked their offense despite all the talent they have.  It was also a major question mark for Cincinnati entering 2018, despite the additions of Cordy Glenn and Billy Price.

However, in a stunning turn of events, the Bengals offensive line is presently 4th in the league in adjusted sack rate.  Cincinnati was 20th in the same metric last year.  What’s remarkable is there is still some low level of play among the Bengals’ offensive lineman, so this leads us to believe that Dalton is doing a good job evading defenders.

Two of those struggling linemen are Cordy Glenn and Alex Redmond.  Each is tied for the 8th most pressures allowed in the league, while Redmond has allowed the third most pressures (16) of any guard in the NFL, and Glenn has allowed the sixth most of any offensive tackle.  Now you may ask yourself – justifiably – how sustainable is it that Dalton keeps avoiding rushers and playing at such a high level if he has two very weak links along the offensive line, especially considering what we know about clean pocket Dalton and under pressure Dalton.

My optimistic counter will point to two things.  The first is Cordy Glenn positively regressing back to his career norm in terms of performance level.  Considering his age and last year’s injury, it’s possible he just isn’t as good anymore, but I have a hard time believing he is actually as bad as he has seemed through the first four weeks.  I would give it more time before concluding he just doesn’t have it, and feel decently confident about him getting back to being at least an average starting left tackle. (Besides, he is struggling much more in the run game than the pass game)

And even with Glenn and Redmond struggling that much thus far, Dalton is enjoying the 16th highest rate of clean pockets on all his dropbacks, among quarterbacks with at least 50 dropbacks.  Basically, he is already enjoying an average rate of clean pockets, and Glenn figures to be better as the season progresses.

Second, Dalton is doing a good job of getting rid of the ball quickly.  Among quarterbacks that have taken at least 7 dropbacks this season, Dalton has the 7th quickest release time at 2.37 seconds.  His passer rating on throws made under 2.5 seconds is 108.2, the 11th highest mark in the league among players that have taken at least 25 total dropbacks this year.

It’s also worth noting that the Bengals have improved from 24th in adjusted line yards in the run game last season to 9th so far in 2018.

Strong Where It Matters – Defense

We all know Aaron Donald is the best interior defender in the world, but after that it is a tightly contested battle between Geno Atkins and Fletcher Cox for second place.  What’s important here isn’t who is better between the two, it’s highlighting the fact that Atkins is incredible.  He is second among interior defenders in total pressures so far in 2018, and is the primary reason the Bengals pass rush ranks 5th in grading as a unit.  But once again, there is upside in the trenches for Cincinnati.

The Bengals are tied for 7th (with Pittsburgh) in the league in total pressures with 80.  They rank 12th in sacks, however, with 10.  This may not seem like a big discrepancy, but Pittsburgh has 12 sacks, ranking 7th, and for context the Bears (82 pressures) and the Colts (83 pressures) have 18 sacks and 17 sacks, respectively.  The Bears and Colts have the most and second most sacks in the league.  So at present, Cincinnati is 18th in adjusted sack rate, but it stands to reason they should move into the top ten before the year is over.

Of the core four areas, the weakest one right now is the secondary.  Last year William Jackson was an absolute stud, there just is no other way to put it.  I mentioned this before the season and I’ll say it again here: Last year in William Jackson’s coverage, Antonio Brown caught 0 passes on 7 targets, and Jackson recorded 4 pass breakups.  That is quite literally as good as it can possibly get.

Last year Jackson allowed 151 yards in his coverage, and has already allowed 212 this year.  Team’s were completing just 35% of their passes in Jackson’s defense, while this year that number is up to 61.5%.  Also struggling is Darqueze Dennard, who is playing below his career average performance level right now.

It makes more sense that over the rest of the season both Jackson and Dennard will play at a higher level, instead of continuing at their current level.  Jackson was so dominant last season, and was still dominant against the best receiver in the league.  It makes more sense that he will be better moving forward instead of playing at a below average level.  Additionally, this is Dennard’s 5th season, and three of his previous seasons were better than 2018.  Odds are he will rebound to an average or above average level.  It would also help this secondary if the front can start converting some more of their pressures into sacks.

The Window Dressing

If you’re reading this site there is a 0% chance I have to explain to you that A.J. Green is tremendous.  Actually, if you’re a human being with eyes there’s a 0% chance I have to explain to you that A.J. Green is tremendous.  However, you might not have been aware that Green is dominating from the slot in 2018.  Welp, he is, as he leads the league in yards per route run from the slot among WRs with a minimum of 35 slot snaps.  He is a full yard and a half above second place, who is Michael Thomas, aka the guy that has caught an unimaginable 42 of 44 targets this year.  Yea, Green has been better than that guy (from the slot).

But the Bengals have a legitimate #2 receiver now, and it’s not the guy I picked as the breakout offensive player.  Tyler Boyd ranks 12th in DYAR and 6th (!!) in DVOA among wide receivers.  He has the 10th highest slot yards per route run among players with at least 35 snaps lined up as the slot receiver.  Boyd has yet to drop a pass on 36 targets through the first four games.  He’s even tied for the 9th most first down receptions.

So why the confidence Boyd will continue to be good when he didn’t move the needle his first two seasons?  He was a second round pick that I liked when coming out in the draft, and I’ve watched three of the four Bengals games this season.  Dalton has eyes for Boyd, especially when pressured.  Boyd, the primary slot receiver, has demonstrated a knack for flashing across the middle when Dalton is either on the move or looking to get rid of the ball immediately.

The Bengals have also experienced spectacular play from their running backs.  Joe Mixon ranks 9th in DYAR among running backs and has basically played in 1.5 games.  He also ranks 3rd in DVOA and 4th in success rate.  In Mixon’s absence, Giovani Bernard racked up the 12th highest DYAR total, is currently 5th in DVOA, and in 6th in success rate.

The other item of note here is that Vontaze Burfict has finished serving his suspension and has been add to the active roster.  That is huge as the linebacker play for the Bengals has been less than stellar so far.

Adding It All Together

On the season, the Bengals rank 7th in DVOA, 10th in Total Dave, 7th in non-adjusted total VOA, 9th in point differential, 4th in grading, and 16th in fivethirtyeight’s ELO rating.  The Bengals have accomplished this against the 9th most difficult record through the first four weeks.

Cincinnati is leaning heavily on their offense thus far to accomplish everything they have.  They’re 5th in offensive DVOA, compared to 23rd in defense.  Cincinnati is boasting a balanced offense, as they rank 10th in pass DVOA and 8th in run DVOA.  This makes sense given everything we have talked about to this point; Dalton’s play, the line, Green/Boyd, Mixon/Bernard.  What’s really encouraging is the Bengals rank 2nd in offensive DVOA variance, meaning they’ve been the second most consistent offense on a week to week basis.

The Bengals are 21st in defensive pass DVOA and 15th in defensive run DVOA.  This makes sense given that their pressures aren’t turning into sacks and their two best corners are currently struggling.  Since logic dictates all of those things should bounce back in a positive direction – especially the conversion of pressures into sacks – it’s easy to see a pathway for their 21st pass ranking to climb significantly higher.  As for the run defense, 15th isn’t exactly bad or anything, and the addition of Burfict to the lineup will only help there.

Cincinnati is 3-1 with a home game Sunday against the Dolphins that they need to win before hitting a difficult stretch of their schedule.  It’s also a game the Bengals should win.  If Cincinnati can secure a 4-1 record it will be well positioned before hosting the Steelers, traveling to the Chiefs, hosting the Bucs, hosting the Saints, and then traveling to the Ravens.  That’s pretty brutal.

At 4-1, however, they could afford to go 2-3 over that five game stretch and still be in OK shape before their stretch run, which includes two games against the Browns, and home games against the Broncos and Raiders.  I don’t want to call a week 5 game a must win, but if Cincinnati wants to prove themselves as a real playoff contender, a home date with the Dolphins is the type of game they need to not overlook as a grueling stretch on the schedule looms.

But the Bengals should win, as they’re at home and are just the better team.  As for the outlook on the rest of their season, they’re playing at a playoff level right now and all the indicators are that they’re still underperforming, leaving room for improvement, and improvement in the core four areas.  Cincinnati, while trapped in one of the most difficult divisions, will be in the playoff race til the very end, as the Bengals are real playoff contenders.

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