Joe Burrow and the Bengals bounced back in a big way against the Miami Dolphins. After being shut out by the Ravens and looking somewhat lifeless in the process, Joe Burrow came out against the Phins and went 25-for-32 for 309 yards and four touchdowns through the air. With those numbers Burrow eclipsed 20,000 career passing yards and 150 career passing touchdowns.
The Bengals will face the Arizona Cardinals and Cleveland Browns to finish off the 2025 season. They will have Burrow, Chase, and Tee Higgins available for both games and will almost surely be favored in both contests. While the tank is on for other teams like the Commanders and Jets, the Bengals could realistically win their final games to finish with a record of 7-10.
Tanking is never fun to watch but it makes the losses all the more bearable knowing that a potential star player waits in the wings after a solid draft. Conversely, when a team like the Bengals plays as well as it did against Miami but costs itself draft position it’s a mixed bag of emotions. But at the end of the day watching winning Bengals football is always better than the alternative.
As of now though Cincinnati still holds a top 10 pick, at number nine. The worst pick they could have is 14th overall. The highest potential place they could draft would be fourth. It’s quite a wide range but I’d imagine we are trending more towards the 14th than fourth given how locked in Burrow looked last time out, and the struggles the Cardinals and Browns have undergone recently.
There are several game-changing players available to the Bengals in that window of picks, and we previously discussed some of the most impactful in the upcoming draft class. Most agree that the defensive side of the ball should be the top priority for the front office and the 2026 draft class has plenty of players who fit that bill and so it represents yet another outstanding opportunity to right the ship defensively.
And while the jury is still out on Duke Tobin’s recent first round draft picks, credit must be given for others that were also seen as risky at the time but have now either panned out or show a lot of promise. Those of course are offensive linemen Amarius Mims and Dylan Fairchild.
Mims had injury issues in college and hadn’t played an overwhelming amount of snaps, but was seen as a high ceiling player that would take work to get going. And as you can see from the above he is doing just that in his second year, and more. The same is true of the rookie Bengals guard. Since being drafted in the third round of the 2025 draft out of Georgia Dylan Fairchild has played above expectations in both the run and pass schemes and has seemingly shored up the guard position, a huge area of concern coming into this season.
Something has to break right for this team when it comes to drafting quality defensive players that can make positive contributions right away (think Cleveland’s Carson Schwesinger) and perhaps with such a potentially high pick, this might finally be the year. Because Cincinnati has shown a great ability to hit on top picks, you can look no further than Burrow and Chase for that proposition.
And while they may not be in that stratosphere, players like Caleb Downs, Rueben Bain and Peter Woods are absolutely cannot pass up picks that might make all the difference if the Bengals remain in the top 10 of the draft order. If they do not, other players like LSU cornerback Mansoor Delane, Auburn’s defensive end Keldric Faulk and Texas Tech’s edge David Bailey could all be in the mix.
There is a lot in flux in terms of draft position these last two weeks. The Bengals are about as far away from tanking as an eliminated team can be, so it will be very interesting to see where they end up in the pecking order. Especially when you add what they can do with the nearly $110 million dollars they have in cap space for 2026. A stellar draft class with some quality free agent acquisitions (including the potential to sign Jacksonville Jaguars standout linebacker Devin Lloyd or Kansas City Chiefs and linebacker Leo Chenal, as two very early examples) could go a long way to fixing this defense a lot faster than many thought.
