We’re still roughly a month away from the 2022 NFL schedule being released, but we’ve already dissected who will play who next season. And as a result of winning the AFC North, the Cincinnati Bengals know they’ll face a tough schedule, which includes the other division winners (Buffalo, Tennessee, Kansas City) plus two division winners from the NFC (Dallas, Tampa Bay).
While it’s easy to calculate strength of schedule using last season’s records, NBC Sports’ Warren Sharp calculated each team’s schedule strength using Vegas win totals for 2022.
As a result, the Bengals come in with the 7th-hardest schedule in the league. Only the Steelers, Raiders, 49ers, Rams, Jets and Chiefs have tougher schedules, with the Chiefs coming in with the toughest schedule.
last year the Bengals played the #3 easiest schedule in the NFL
this year?
the #7 hardest schedule
last year they played 11 games vs non-playoff teams, 2nd most of any team
now they face the largest increase in schedule difficulty in 2022 of any team pic.twitter.com/ELZMbCArls
— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) March 31, 2022
The easiest schedule belongs to the Washington Commanders, which includes the NFC North and the AFC South.
Sharp also discussed the 2021 Bengals schedule, which featured teams that wound up with fewer wins than expected, compared to their projected win total before the season.
let's talk Bengals 2021 schedule
they were the only team to have a top-7 easy schedule last yr that I predicted outside the top-10 easiest before the season
what happened?
13 of 17 opponents were worse teams than expected, some considerably so, which changes SOS dramatically pic.twitter.com/0cRW7VY40v
— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) April 1, 2022
To be fair, a few of these teams were off by one win over fewer from their projected win total.
The Bengals are well aware this season in the AFC is going to be a gauntlet. This note is just another notch in fueling their fire to get back to the Super Bowl.
