Cincinnati Bengals 2020 NFL schedule: 5 must-win games
By Matt Conner
The Cincinnati Bengals have nowhere to go but up, but it’ll be these five games on the schedule that will establish just how much better they are.
The Cincinnati Bengals face a long road to respectability, and they’ve purposefully chosen the scenic route to boot. Zac Taylor was hired a year ago as the team’s head coach and he’s going to be given a very long leash with which to slowly improve his team. Remember this is the same owner (Mike Brown) who kept Marvin Lewis employed for so long. There’s not a more patient organization in football, and that’s good news for Taylor in 2020.
To be frank, the Bengals will have a hard time putting together five wins this season, so to call five games as “must wins” is a bit of a misnomer. Rather, this should read more like “the five best chances for Cincy to win a game.” This is a roster devoid of a lot of young talent, a team that has, for reasons unknown, held onto familiar veterans longer than they should. The end result is a slow turning of a large ship versus a sexier, more streamlined process.
Home: Jacksonville Jaguars
Given that the Bengals are ready to secure their franchise face and given that the quarterback in question is likely going to be Joe Burrow, it stands to reason that the Bengals will be much better offensively in 2020 even if that’s the only change. The leap from Andy Dalton or Ryan Finley to Burrow should itself result in a few wins.
The most obvious potential win is against a Jacksonville Jaguars team that is a shell of the 2017 version on the verge of a Super Bowl. Doug Marrone is outcoached most Sundays of the NFL season, and the Jags have been more focused on selling off expensive parts than bringing in much talent to a team that was already 6-10 last season.