This Bengals draft can surprise a lot of skeptical fans.
Now that the NFL Draft is over, many outlets are unveiling their post-NFL Draft rankings.
Take these rankings with a grain of salt because, obviously, none of the players drafted have played in an NFL game yet. We don’t know how they’re exactly going to impact the respective teams that draft them.
Still, though, it’s fun to project and hope after the draft concludes.
NFL.com’s Eric Edholm, who writes the website’s weekly Power Rankings column and co-hosts The NFL Power Rankings podcast during the season, recently unveiled his post-draft power rankings.
The Cincinnati Bengals check in at No. 12 in the rankings, the second-highest team in the AFC North and fifth-highest in the AFC.
Edholm writes on the Bengals: “‘I think the theme is they love football, all six of these guys,’” head coach Zac Taylor said of his 2025 draft class. And the comment didn’t come off as typical post-draft fodder to me; it felt more like an indirect statement on what happened in 2024, which was a cavalcade of drama, disputes, and unrealized expectations in what became a more chaotic situation in Cincinnati. The Bengals were Super Bowl contenders, except for the winning part, and that was part of the problem.”
It’s clear that Edholm thinks the Bengals were Super Bowl contenders last year, and he suggests they could be this season.
In addition to the Bengals draft, they also paid big money to extend wide receivers Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins. Their contracts will headline training camp this season, so there won’t be any drama.
Edholm mentions that while we don’t know how Hendrickson’s contract situation is going to be resolved, he said “the last thing Cincy needs is another protracted contract squabble entering training camp.”
The Bengals, led by Joe Burrow, Chase, and Higgins, are going to be a really talented team in 2025. Just how far they can go may depend on a draft class that some fans have been vocal about their skepticism towards.
