Bengals Deemed A Few Moves Away From Super Bowl Contention Ahead of 2026 Season

CINCINNATI — The Bengals are outside the top 10 NFL teams by consensus Super Bowl LXI betting odds at this point in the offseason, but ESPN's Jeremy Fowler still has them right near the cusp of contention.

He tiered out all of the NFL's 18 non-playoff teams into contending categories this week and had the Bengals "Just A Few Moves Away" from getting back to a Super Bowl. It was one section down from "No Need To Panic," which had Baltimore, Detroit, and Kansas City.

"The offense is good enough to keep Cincinnati in just about every game. The window remains open to win now with Joe Burrow, Ja'Marr Chase, and a strong supporting cast. The team has ample cap space to strengthen its defense via free agency," Fowler wrote.

To no one's surprise, the Bengals ' bottom-five defense is completely handicapping their trajectory.

"That defense lacks high-end talent and playmaking and is about to lose its best player (Hendrickson)," Fowler wrote. "A unit that was supposed to improve finished 31st in total defense. Eventually, bad defense will become the identity and not an aberration unless addressed in a major way."

It's become a foregone assumption that Cincinnati won't retain Trey Hendrickson and play him on a $30-plus million franchise tag, but if that doesn't happen they should try to do everything to trade him on the tag and get something back for their best defensive player this decade.

Cincinnati is primed like fresh dynamite to inject multiple high-end defensive talents into this lineup. They could re-sign Dalton Risner soon, leaving zero other starters to retain offensively and then pour all the free-agency time and energy into the defensive additions.

According to Over The Cap, Cincinnati has the seventh-most cap space in the NFL as of this writing ($54.5 million). There are zero pressing extensions to get done with current players, and they have arguably the best passer in the sport when healthy.

"We're going to weigh all options," Bengals director of player personnel, Duke Tobin, said last month about improving the team. "I'm not prepared, even if I was willing to share exactly what we were going to do. I don't know at this point what we're going to do. We're still working through all those options, but it'll be important for us to make the right decisions. It'll be very important for us to make the right decisions to improve our football team, particularly improve our defense."

There is a clear path to give Joe Burrow the most defensive talent he's ever had backing him up after scoring drives. Check out Fowler's full piece here.

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