By: Jeremy Trottier

As we all know now, the Cincinnati Bengals were the underdog story of the 2021-2022 season, making it all the way to the Super Bowl with an extremely young core.  However, a lot of factors went their way to get them there, which is worth noting.  While the team is still exceptionally talented, a deep playoff run may be harder this season compared to last.  With that, in this article, I will be covering the 3 biggest obstacles to a future Bengals Super Bowl run.

1. Rapidly Returning AFC Powers

The first obstacle would be how the AFC is rapidly improving this offseason and with injuries being healed.  The Baltimore Ravens for one will be getting Lamar Jackson, J.K. Dobbins, Gus Edwards, Marlon Humphrey, etc. back from injury on top of whomever they draft at pick 14.  Another recently built squad being the Denver Broncos, who brought in Russell Wilson (pending approval) and kept many of their premier playmakers on the roster, making them another competitor for the AFC title.  

Buffalo and Kansas City obviously remain as contenders and could take upgrades potentially.  Another worth mentioning is the Chargers, who have a huge amount of cap space this offseason (roughly 56-57 million) prior to the Mike Williams signing, and in the 30s after that.

2.  Large Improvements needed

While the Bengals roster obviously proved itself to be a contender, the offensive line still needs to be invested in, and heavily.  While they have enough cap space to do so, they will likely get into bidding wars over the top tier OL members, which is not a battle they could win in a lot of cases as many teams have huge cap space numbers.  Their draft pick is also 31 obviously, which could be a quality player however not one that will completely fix the whole line by himself.  They also have free agents to return which will dimmish their cap even more, such as CJ Uzomah, Riley Reiff, Larry Ogunjobi, and potentially figure out a long-term deal for Jessie Bates (even though he was franchise tagged this year).

3. VERY hard strength of schedule

Finally, we have the Bengals strength of schedule, which is even harder than last seasons when they finished 10-7.  The Bengals ranked the (tied) 6^th hardest schedule in 2021, which was somewhat tampered off by the Ravens not being as good as usual and the Browns collapsing midseason.  They will now have the 3^rd hardest SOS at a 0.536 opponent win record average, as well as the Ravens returning from injury issues and the Browns potentially getting better with $17 million in cap, the 13^th pick, and Baker healthy again. 

The Steelers will still look somewhat mediocre at least as of now unless they make some amazing free agency pickups.  However, this strength of schedule could make the Bengals shot at a deep playoff run be significantly more difficult. 

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