Five Bengals midseason predictions: Joe Burrow will battle Lamar Jackson for MVP

CINCINNATI — The start of the season didn’t go as the Bengals planned or hoped. They’ve seemingly lived every week with their backs against the wall, already hearing the phrase “must win” uttered by their quarterback at multiple news conferences before the calendar turned to November.

With eyes on January, however, the Bengals have an intriguing, if murky, second half ahead of them while sitting at 4-5, narrowly outside of the AFC playoff picture.

They have an offense capable of outscoring anyone, a quarterback playing at an expected elite level and still one of the best receiver combinations in the league. They also have a defense capable of being the worst in the league on any given Sunday, young players placed in prominent roles not making enough progress and an injured reserve list starting to fill with important pieces.

All of that creates a two-month run where you could see Joe Burrow leading them back to the playoffs and sneaking in as a team none of the division winners want to see in the first round or potentially back to picking in the top 10 for the first time since selecting Ja’Marr Chase in 2021.

Here are my predictions.

Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson finish 1-2 for MVP

The season might not have started the way the Bengals hoped, but that won’t stop voters from recognizing Burrow’s gaudy numbers when all is said and done. He already ranks atop the league in QBR and is on pace for numbers rarely seen in NFL history.

He’s on pace for 4,239 yards passing, 38 touchdown passes, seven interceptions and to complete 70 percent of his passes. The only quarterback in history to check all those boxes was Aaron Rodgers during his 2020 MVP season.

Lamar Jackson would join — and exceed — that pace if the completion percentage were dropped to his 68.3 percent. There’s no argument Jackson would be the league MVP if the award were given today. That makes this Thursday night’s Bengals-Ravens game all the more entertaining.

If Cincinnati can stay relevant on Burrow’s back until the end of the season, voters would have to include him, even if Jackson is far away from the field right now. Keeping up with that pace will be the hard part with awful defenses like the Commanders, Panthers and Ravens already checked off the schedule. The second half features four games against teams ranked in the top three of the league in points allowed per drive: Steelers (twice), Chargers and Broncos.

Burrow has always played better later in the season even with an increased degree of difficulty. Nearly all of his major statistics feature the highest numbers in December/January.

He should have an opportunity to stay on or exceed his pace as long as Chase and Tee Higgins can stay healthy.

The key to any MVP conversation will be a Bengals rise to relevancy. Finding a way to dig back into the AFC North race or pull off big wins down the stretch will play in his favor, as will multiple opportunities to leave an impression on voters with at least four more prime-time games.

Bengals defense will rank in top half over the final 8 games

Coordinator Lou Anarumo and his defense have been much maligned over the first half of the season, including multiple performances that were historically bad. They have a significant rebuilding project in front of them in the offseason. Yet, the second half of the season will be filled with opponents that look more like the Browns, Raiders, Panthers and Giants, teams that the defense helped beat.

There isn’t a team left on the schedule after Thursday ranked in the top half of the league in offensive DVOA. The Bengals defense doesn’t need to improve dramatically to rise up the rankings.

Consider the defensive splits against teams that rank in the top half of offensive DVOA versus the bottom half:

Stat: Vs. Top/Vs. Bottom
Points/game: 35.5 / 17.0
Points/drive: 3.58 / 1.37
Def Success%: 44.4% / 54.9%
Opp ANY/A: 9.18 / 4.17
Record: 0-4 / 4-1

If they get seven games of anything resembling the numbers on the right of the chart, that would qualify for a defense ranked in the top five of the league, much less just the top half. Nobody is expecting that kind of sustainability, but the level of offensive opponents creates an opportunity to post solid numbers.

Bengals will make postseason if they beat Chargers and Broncos

Considering what we know about the Bengals’ level of play this year and their future schedule, you can narrow their playoff picture down to two critical, high-leverage games.

It would be safe to assume they should be counted on to beat the Titans, Browns and Cowboys, all struggling with poor quarterback play.

Fighting back to win the AFC North is all but off the board. So, they will attempt to rise to the sixth or seventh wild card, acknowledging it will take 10 — potentially nine — wins to make it happen.

The Colts, Broncos and Chargers are in the mix with Cincinnati. The Bengals travel to Los Angeles on Nov. 17 and host Denver the last weekend in December. There’s a chance the Steelers come back to the pack with a brutal second-half schedule, and the Bengals will need to at least split against them, but gaining those tiebreakers against Denver and Los Angeles has a great chance to cast the deciding vote in one of those seeds.

Every game matters, but a giant red circle should be around those two.

Tee Higgins offers an emotional farewell before final game

The end in Cincinnati is coming for Higgins, and everyone involved knows it. He’s collecting the $21.8 million franchise tag with the knowledge he will hit free agency in March and move on to his next team.

He’s learned about the harsh realities of business in the NFL — and, specifically, with the Bengals — but that doesn’t mean it will harden him when the final game playing for Cincinnati happens in January.

Higgins hasn’t been shy about how surprised he’s been by the attachment he’s developed with the city. The loud “Teee!” that comes from the crowd after every catch shows that the appreciation goes both ways. Whether to pay Higgins has been a hot topic for years now in Cincinnati, but that doesn’t change how popular he has been with this fan base. Watching him leave just as Jessie Bates did two years ago will be a tough one. At first, it will be tough on Higgins, who I anticipate will tug on some heartstrings with his comments on the way out the door.

Bengals add a running back at the trade deadline

How about a prediction you don’t have to wait long to see if it comes true?

While the team continues to poke around and do due diligence about potential deadline deals at defensive line and corner, none have advanced to serious levels largely because of young players they like as options to fill the void. At defensive end, that means Myles Murphy and Joseph Ossai behind starters Trey Hendrickson and Sam Hubbard, as well as fifth-round pick Josh Newton behind Mike Hilton, DJ Turner and Cam Taylor-Britt.

What happened late last week at running back, however, changed the urgency to find a partner. Zack Moss went out with a neck injury that looks to be significant, even though they await the final word on how long he’ll be out. Either way, the idea of riding Chase Brown for 20-plus carries per game like the Bengals did against the Raiders would be risky at best and recklessly unsustainable at worst.

Trayveon Williams is not a backup they would want to take over a portion of the carries, and that leaves practice squad back Kendall Milton as the only other option.

So, the Bengals head to the trade market, where they almost never have been able to consummate a deal. Only now, they have urgent motivation.

Among notable running back names swirling the rumor mill: Chicago’s Khalil Herbert, Jacksonville’s Travis Etienne and Carolina’s Miles Sanders.

Brown took on a heavy workload while at Illinois and the Bengals have faith he could handle it again, but they would prefer another back to lean on and serve as an insurance policy with Moss’ season in doubt.