With the NFL season officially beginning, there is still a lot of uncertainty about what lies ahead for the Cincinnati Bengals, but Cynthia Frelund, an analytics expert at NFL.com used data from the past 12 NFL seasons to try to make that picture a little more clear.
Using a model that went through 1,000,000 simulations of every single regular season game, Frelund projected win totals for every AFC team in the 2024 season, while also vetting those totals with “real football people” like coaches and front office members.
Here’s what Frelund had to say about the Bengals, noting that their free agency efforts this offseason seem to have been a very big success.
I told you earlier that Cincinnati’s fourth-place schedule drove value in what I calculate to be the most challenging division in the NFL. Ahead of the preseason, the Bengals were my model’s pick to win the division. This tells you how much Ja’Marr Chase’s hold-in impacts this team.
One of my favorite notes on the Bengals is that adding DT Sheldon Rankins and safeties Vonn Bell and Geno Stone this offseason drove the win-share projection for the whole defense up three games.
The average win total for Cincinnati over all of those projections was 10.4 wins, which wouldn’t be a bad record in what should be a strong AFC North yet again. She also included the ceiling for the Bengals (12.6 wins) and the floor (7.5 wins).
Their ceiling was higher than every other team in the division, although the Baltimore Ravens average total (10.5) and floor (8.5) were slightly higher. However, if everything goes right for Cincinnati, the model seems to think they can get back on top of the division after a disappointing fourth-place finish last year.
