{"id":644867,"date":"2026-05-02T12:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T12:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/644867\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T12:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T12:13:09","slug":"bengals-soar-to-top-afc-spot-in-nfl-analysts-post-nfl-draft-power-rankings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/644867\/","title":{"rendered":"Bengals soar to top AFC spot in NFL analyst\u2019s post-NFL Draft power rankings"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cincinnati Bengals<\/a> added solid players in free agency, but it still felt like there was a hole or two on the defense.<\/p>\n

Then they filled that hole with Dexter Lawrence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After that, they added some spunk to the pass rush by drafting Cashius Howell in the second round. For those reasons and more, Chase Senior of Chat Sports has the Bengals as the best team in the AFC in his post-Draft rankings.<\/p>\n

When asked why, he responded<\/a> with:<\/p>\n

When Joe Burrow is healthy, might be the second best QB in the NFL. Chase and Higgins are an elite WR duo.. Major improvements on defense: trading for Dexter Lawrence, signed Boye Mafe<\/a>, Bryan Cook<\/a>, Kyle Dugger<\/a>, drafted Cassius [sic] Howell and Tacario Davis<\/a>. Last year with Burrow missing a ton of time, they were still 12th in PPG, 3rd in red zone scoring. Achilles heel has been their defense which I think is much better<\/p>\n

Hard to argue with that.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

While we\u2019ve seen other analysts and even oddsmakers recently show doubt in the Bengals\u2019 chances of being a contender next season, we all know this team has the potential for a special season, so it\u2019s good to see someone else believes in this team\u2019s potential.<\/p>\n

We recapped the Draft and the Lawrence trade in our most recent show.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cincinnati Bengals added solid players in free agency, but it still felt like there was a hole…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,75220,74881,133450,10027,1252,1256,55397,629,229146,311943,64074,593,12293,85,257684,627,23868,2957],"class_list":["post-644867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boye-mafe","tag-bryan-cook","tag-cashius-howell","tag-cincinnati","tag-cincinnati-bengals","tag-denver-broncos","tag-dexter-lawrence","tag-joe-burrow","tag-joseph-maiorana-imagn","tag-joseph-maiorana-imagn-images","tag-kyle-dugger","tag-nfl","tag-ohio","tag-sports","tag-tacario-davis","tag-tee-higgins","tag-touchdown-pass","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}