The Cincinnati Bengals finished last in the toughest division in football in 2023 despite finishing with a 9-8 record.
The Bengals are trotting out a healthy Joe Burrow this year but lost an important piece of the coaching puzzle in Brian Callahan, their offensive coordinator, who is now the head coach in Tennessee.
Cincinnati Bengals Futures Odds
All odds are from DraftKings Sportsbook unless noted otherwise.
Super Bowl Odds: +1300
AFC Odds: +700
AFC North Odds: +140
Win Total: 10.5 (Over -125/Under +100)
To Make/Miss the Playoffs: -260/+205
Bengals Offense
Despite contract drama, the Bengals are still starting 2024 with one of the top trios in the league.
Per Tru Media, Burrow averages 0.38 EPA per dropback when targeting Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins in his career. As mentioned in the Arizona Cardinals preview, this is 0.05 better than Kylar Murray when targeting DeAndre Hopkins and A.J. Green, 0.07 better than Josh Allen targeting Stefon Diggs, and 0.03 less than Patrick Mahomes targeting Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce.
While some might think of Jonah Williams and Joe Mixon as losses, I think of it as addition by subtraction.
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Williams was awful in both pass-blocking metrics (sacks and pressures).
Per Next Gen Stats, Mixon was 21st of 49 in rushing yards over expected per attempt. Mixon was 22nd of 49 in their efficiency metric, which calculates how efficiently a runner uses space to run.
In other words, players ranked last in this metric don’t do a lot of north/south running and tend to “do too much.”
Bengals Defense
The Bengals finished 25th in the league in EPA per play defensively. This is quite alarming considering it was largely the same unit that produced the eighth-best defense last year.
While additions like rookies Kris Jenkins and McKinnley Jackson and veteran Sheldon Rankings signal the Bengals’ attempts to improve, none of them will have the impact that they lost in D.J. Reader. In addition, they also lost Chidobe Awuzie in the secondary.
One Betting Trend To Know
Since Burrow was drafted, the Bengals have a cover record of 8-8-1 in games where the closing line was 45 or more points. This is important to know as the Bengals are going to need to score lots of points to win games next season.
Best Bet for Bengals in 2024
Chase is +1200 to win OPOY, and Burrow is +900 to win MVP.
With a running game that will rely on an average back in Zack Moss and a defense that has regressed significantly, I like either of those picks as good value bets.
KEEP READING: NFL Defensive Player of the Year Odds
Chase and Burrow are both going to be expected to carry the load for an offense-heavy team.
For the MVP pick, go ahead and parlay it with Bengals over on wins, AFC North division winner odds, or Bengals to make the playoffs as every MVP since 2017 has been on a team with 12+ wins.