Bengals Joe Burrow speaks at press conference leading up to season opener against Browns
Bengals Joe Burrow speaks at press conference on Wednesday September 3, 2025 leading up to season opener against the Browns.
Do the Cincinnati Bengals view the Cleveland Browns as a must-win game even though it’s the season opener?The Bengals have a history of slow starts to the season under head coach Zac Taylor.The Bengals are favored to beat the Browns in Cleveland Sept. 7.
The idea of an early-season “must-win” game in the NFL is pretty rare. And “must-win” territory in Week One? Can there be such a thing?
Even a 17-game schedule would seem to afford each NFL team a reasonable amount of time to recover from a Week One loss. Right?
Well, whether the Cincinnati Bengals like it or not, their history of early-season stumbles has earned them a place in a conversation about whether their trip to play the Cleveland Browns Sept. 7 is a must-win.
“Every game is a must-win game,” Bengals receiver Ja’Marr Chase said during his Sept. 4 news conference at Paycor Stadium. “It would be good.”
Chase also said the prompt was the earliest in a season he’d ever been asked about must-win circumstances.
For what it’s worth, the Bengals are favored to beat the Browns, according to BetMGM.
It’s not an unfounded subject for the Bengals players to have to address. Head coach Zac Taylor has a 1-5 record in Week 1 games, and the team is 7-15-1 under Taylor in the month September.
In 2024, a torrid finish by Cincinnati fell short of a playoff berth, and it’s reasonable to think the team undid its playoff hopes by starting 0-3. Two weeks later, the Bengals were 1-4, and the sense was even a strong finish to the season wouldn’t allow them to overcome their slow beginnings.
That proved true, even after Taylor oversaw a five-game winning streak to end the season.
Tee Higgins agreed with Chase’s sentiments, saying: “To me, every game is a must win. It’s a step closer to our goal.”
There’s no easy path through any portion of the Bengals’ schedule. The opener at Cleveland will be their second season-opening game at Huntington Bank Field in three seasons. On Sept. 10, 2023, Cincinnati managed just three points and were routed by the Browns.
Cincinnati has just one home game in September. After playing at Cleveland, the Bengals host the Jacksonville Jaguars at Paycor Stadium and won’t return to their home field until Oct. 5 when they welcome the Detroit Lions.
Back to the September schedule, though. After the Jaguars game, Cincinnati will play on the road against the Minnesota Vikings and the Denver Broncos. The Vikings, while very different from the team they fielded last season, went 14-3 in 2024.
The Bengals beat the Broncos at Paycor Stadium last season, but the Broncos still managed a 10-7 record and made the playoffs. And this year’s game on Sept. 29 is a Monday Night Football tilt in Denver.
The questions about starting slowly in September will cease when the Bengals show it’s no longer a problem. Their first attempt to quash the conversation is Sept. 7, but they’ll also have to quash it in the weeks to follow because the Bengals don’t just have a Week One problem. The entire month of September in general has been hard on this club.