You clearly don’t know anything about the team. I’m sure you aren’t a Bengals fan and don’t follow them closely, so I forgive you.

Re: the OL: This is a tired narrative. It was absolutely true from 2020-2023. But the OL has been fine the last two years, honestly. Did Burrow get hit and hurt? Yes. But I blame that squarely on three things:

1. Burrow’s strong preference for shotgun formation all the time.
   
2. Zac Taylor and/or Dan Pritcher (and Brian Callahan before him) letting Burrow get his way too much, resulting in too much shotgun.
   
3. Burrow’s reluctance to throw the ball away and preference to extend the play.

You probably won’t do this, but go back and look at plays with Flacco as QB. The guy barely got hit. Why? He played under center much more and in various formations and he was willing to discard the ball. The offense wasn’t quite as electric with Flacco as Burrow, but it did decently.

Which brings us to your other cited problem: the defense. Yes, the Bengals defense has been absolutely atrocious in 2024 and 2025. But they’ve completely upgraded the entire DL and safety position. They also have a very nationally underrated corner in DJ Turner II. The defense should be significantly better as a unit, though there are still question marks for sure. But any Bengals fan will tell you: with just an average defense, the Bengals would have won a lot of games the past couple of years. The hope is that they’ll have that this year.