Bengals Higher Than Expected, But Fall in Power Rankings After Bye Week
CINCINNATI — The Bengals are feeling good about themselves coming out of the bye week.
They beat the Titans 31-20 in Week 8 and believe they can make a second half run.
"Confidence is the word I would use to describe our football team with right now," Bengals head coach Zac Taylor said on Monday. "We've prepared, we've felt confident going into these games. We played well in spurts in a lot of games we played. We just hadn't put it together until the Tennessee game. We have to stay level-headed. We can't ride that wave of excitement and discouragement and we've just got to keep putting in the work and know it will pay off if we do things the right way."
The Bengals moved up to 21st in Sports Illustrated's Week 9 power rankings following the win over the Titans. They fell a few spots during the bye, but they're still 25th, which is higher than they've been for most of the season.
The MMQB staff continues to have a positive outlook about Cincinnati's future.
"The Bengals look to have the whole quarterback thing figured out, which officially means last year was worth it. So it’s not a one-year turnaround, but the future looks promising if they can build around Joe Burrow."
One staff member had the Bengals has high as 20th. The Steelers are second in their power rankings behind the Chiefs.
If Cincinnati can pull off the upset Sunday in Pittsburgh, then they'll make a big jump in these rankings next week.
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