{"id":305047,"date":"2025-08-21T04:54:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T04:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/305047\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T04:54:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T04:54:12","slug":"nfl-expert-claims-raiders-have-better-playoff-hopes-than-bengals-while-speaking-some-brutal-truths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/305047\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL expert claims Raiders have better playoff hopes than Bengals while speaking some brutal truths"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a frustrating offseason for Cincinnati Bengals<\/a> fans.<\/p>\n

Yes, they managed to lock up Ja\u2019Marr Chase and Tee Higgins long-term, keeping the \u201cBig Three\u201d intact, but Trey Hendrickson remains without an extension. Their standoff with first-round pick Shemar Stewart was ugly and public, and most outside observers believe the front office hasn\u2019t done enough to avoid another season ending on the couch instead of in the playoffs.<\/p>\n

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ESPN\u2019s Louis Riddick is among them<\/a>. On First Take, he said he trusts the Raiders \u2014 and even the Patriots \u2014 more than the Bengals to reach the postseason.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d trust the Raiders right now to find a way to sneak into the playoffs before I would trust the Bengals,\u201d Riddick said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

He pointed to New England\u2019s \u201call-star\u201d coaching staff as an example of a team that can outperform its talent, while hammering Cincinnati\u2019s biggest weakness: the offensive line.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince Joe\u2019s been there, they\u2019ve been in the bottom quarter of the league in pass block win rate every single year,\u201d Riddick said. \u201cAnd people go, \u2018Well, he\u2019s been able to manage it!\u2019 Look at the season he had last year. You\u2019re playing with fire, asking him to be perfect every single week behind turnstiles.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhile everyone else in the AFC is gaining ground, his team is losing it. Trey Hendrickson doesn\u2019t make them a Super Bowl contender or a playoff contender by himself. There are far more fundamental issues with this team.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s plenty to unpack, and he\u2019s not wrong about much of it. The Bengals have failed Joe Burrow in protection. He dragged them to a Super Bowl and back-to-back AFC Championship Games while being hit more than just about any other quarterback in football.<\/p>\n

This offseason, Cincinnati drafted Dylan Fairchild in the third round, and he\u2019s been steady, but they didn\u2019t exactly go all-in on fixing right guard. They\u2019re still shuffling players, hoping something sticks, and unless Dalton Risner signs in Cincinnati, they\u2019re once again flirting with disaster for their franchise quarterback\u2019s health.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s the defense. Hendrickson\u2019s situation is only one problem. The Bengals ignored their secondary\u2014the same unit that was among the league\u2019s worst in 2024\u2014and are banking on DJ Turner and Dax Hill bouncing back to fix things. Several proven free agents were available, but the team stuck with what they had.<\/p>\n

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So is Riddick wrong to doubt them? Not really. It\u2019s hard to imagine a team with a quarterback who threw for 4,918 yards and 43 touchdowns, a wideout who won the Triple Crown, and the league\u2019s sack leader missing the playoffs. But that\u2019s exactly what happened last season. And while the collapse wasn\u2019t all on the defense, it was mostly on the defense\u2014and now they enter 2025 without their best player.<\/p>\n

Does that inspire confidence? I don\u2019t see it. But in Joe we trust.<\/p>\n

Hopefully, Riddick is wrong. Hopefully I\u2019m wrong. I\u2019d love nothing more than for the Bengals to make me eat crow.<\/p>\n

What do you think?<\/p>\n

Sound off in the comments section!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been a frustrating offseason for Cincinnati Bengals fans. Yes, they managed to lock up Ja\u2019Marr Chase and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2065],"tags":[256,758,15009,1165,7,1577,1744,393,2455,2454,3239,1167,6,208,525,1496,2978,1503],"class_list":{"0":"post-305047","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-las-vegas-raiders","8":"tag-cincinnati-bengals","9":"tag-dalton-risner","10":"tag-dj-turner","11":"tag-dylan-fairchild","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-joe-burrow","14":"tag-las-vegas","15":"tag-las-vegas-raiders","16":"tag-lasvegas","17":"tag-lasvegasraiders","18":"tag-louis-riddick","19":"tag-new-england","20":"tag-nfl","21":"tag-patriots","22":"tag-raiders","23":"tag-shemar-stewart","24":"tag-tee-higgins","25":"tag-trey-hendrickson"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115064974258947624","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}