'Just Utter Dominance' - National Media Voices Buying Into Bengals Championship Hopes With Dexter Lawrence

National media experts like Daniel Jeremiah and Marcus Spears are loving what the Bengals have shown across a 2-0 start to the 2026 season.

Both made comments this week about Dexter Lawrence's impact and how the league's top defensive tackle performer so far (No. 1 DT Pro Football Focus grade) is impacting things.

Cincinnati's entire defense has gone from liability to weapon in Lawrence's short time on the field.

NFL Network's Daniel Jeremiah thinks he's playing like a very rare player.

"Three tackles, a TFL, and a quarterback hit don't tell the story," Jeremiah said on his Move The Sticks Podcast. "This was just utter dominance. Like he's in a tilted nose a lot, so lined up right over the center. You'll see him just stack doubles. You can't move him. They try to run outside zone to each side. He beats the cutoff block each time, including on one that I believe was a fourth down. He gets a tackle for loss. They couldn't block him the entire game in the run game. It's just a wall in there.

"Then when you get into the pass rush stuff, you see a snatch where he just presses out and then just snatches to the ground. You see steady pocket push, and you just think, okay, it's all power. It's just this big guy who's almost 400 pounds. I got to brace for power, and then all of a sudden he hits you a little club swim move, and you're like, 'Where the heck did that come from?' He gets a pressure on a loop stunt as big as he is, so he was all over the place."

Spears is picking Cincinnati as the most dangerous 2-0 AFC contender, and Lawrence is a big reason why.

He dove into the topic on The Rich Eisen Show and acknowledged his comment about the Texans' defense last week, when he said "no one should want to play the Houston defense" after starting 0-1.

They played well against Cincinnati, but not well enough.

"I got to give a public apology because I said that this was going to be the worst week to play the Houston Texans defense," Spears said. "Just coming off of what Josh Allen did to them, and if you look at the game like we do when we deep dive, the Houston Texans defense played their ass off. As they had a majority of a great game. It's just Ja'Marr Chase, and Joe is gonna get you at some point with enough opportunities. Tee Higgins showed up.

""But when you look at the other side of the ball and what Dexter Lawrence is doing in the trenches and creating everything for everybody else; that's gonna be a problem for everybody to handle. Since he went out and they made a concerted effort, they said, 'Look, we couldn't stop the run last year. We couldn't get people off the field on third down. We couldn't get our offense enough possessions.' With what we know about Joe Burrow and what those weapons are over there. And they went out and did it, man."

Cincinnati has the easiest schedule in the NFL from Week 3 on, while the Ravens are sitting just above them at 29th. A big win total could end up taking the AFC North at this rate.

Check out their full comments below:

Are we believing in #WhoDey as legit contenders after two very good defensive performances to start the season?#NFL @espnnfl pic.twitter.com/rn0k2GiRrv
— Rich Eisen Show (@RichEisenShow) September 21, 2026

"Utter dominance... He has completely changed this Bengals defense."

Dexter Lawrence has quickly changed the narrative on the Bengals defense early in the season 📈#WhoDey #RuletheJungle #Bengals #NFLWeek2 pic.twitter.com/a8d8Q4IX8s
— Move The Sticks Podcast (@MTSPodOmaha) September 22, 2026

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