Cincinnati Bengals

Seventy-six percent. Best in football. The Bengals turned red-zone trips into touchdowns at the highest rate in the entire league — and still finished six and eleven. Here's how Joe Burrow's mid-season injury rerouted the year, and the one number on defense that explains everything that went wrong. Six and eleven. Missed the playoffs. Fourth in the AFC non-playoff pecking order. For a team built around Burrow and Ja'Marr Chase, this was the year Cincinnati got muffed by the side of the ball they couldn't fix.

The team-level split is wild. The offense finished at minus eight point nine total expected points added — league average, nineteenth. Fine. The defense? Plus one hundred thirty-four point four expected points added allowed — and on defense you want that number deeply negative, so plus one thirty-four is a five-alarm fire. Twenty-ninth in the league. Thirteenth percentile. The offense itself was boom-or-bust in the truest sense — forty-five on the Dolphins, thirty-seven on the Cardinals, forty-two in a shootout loss to the Bears, but also three points in Denver, ten in Minnesota, and a zero-point home shutout against Baltimore in Week Fifteen. The one steady thing all year was third down: forty-five point four percent, fifth in the league, eighty-eighth percentile. They moved the chains. They just couldn't stop anybody.

Now let's talk about the passing offense. Cincinnati threw it six hundred and eighty times for minus eighteen point two total passing expected points added — twenty-fourth in the league, twenty-eighth percentile. Two hundred forty-nine yards a game through the air, thirty-six passing touchdowns, but twenty-four offensive turnovers — and that's the story. This was a two-quarterback season that played out exactly the way you'd fear, and after Week Ten the math collapsed. Same Ja'Marr Chase throughout — one hundred twenty-five catches, fourteen hundred and twelve yards, thirty-two percent target share, a true number-one. The Week Fourteen loss in Buffalo is the snapshot: Burrow throws a short right to Chase at the Bills thirty-three, Cincinnati up three in the fourth, Christian Benford jumps it, sixty-three yards the other way, touchdown. Game over. That one play swung expected points by more than ten. The passing offense wasn't muffed by talent. It was muffed by who was throwing it.

Now let's dig into the rushing offense — and the quiet bright spot of the year. Plus seven total rushing expected points added, seventh in the league, eighty-first percentile. A top-ten run game by efficiency. But the volume number gets weird: four point two yards per carry, twenty-ninth in the league, thirteenth percentile. Ninety-three rushing yards a game. How do you square top-ten efficiency with bottom-five yards per carry? Chase Brown. Two hundred thirty-two carries, one thousand and nineteen yards, four point four a clip, six rushing touchdowns, and seventy-eight point three rushing yards over expected — meaning he produced seventy-eight yards more than an average back would have on the same carries against the same fronts. He carried the unit. Steady floor week to week, and a real reason Cincinnati was the best red-zone team in football.

Next up, the pass defense — where the season died. Cincinnati allowed plus ninety-four point zero expected points added through the air, and remember, on defense you want that number deeply negative, so plus ninety-four is catastrophic. Thirteenth percentile. Thirty-three passing touchdowns surrendered, four thousand one hundred seventy-five passing yards, two hundred forty-five a game. Thirty-five sacks, twenty-fifth in the league. The one thing that kept this unit from being historically bad: twenty-one takeaways, thirteen interceptions and eight fumble recoveries, sixty-sixth percentile — actually above league average. But the per-play number tells you the truth. Plus zero point one six expected points added allowed every dropback. That's not a unit that takes the ball away enough to outrun the damage. They got muffed every Sunday.

And the run defense was somehow worse on a percentile basis. Cincinnati allowed plus forty point three expected points added on the ground — thirteenth percentile, same as the pass defense. Twenty-five hundred and seventeen rushing yards allowed, one hundred forty-eight a game, eighteen rushing touchdowns surrendered, zero point zero nine expected points added allowed per carry. Opponents ran on this defense and it worked every week. No game-by-game lift, no stretch where the front got right — a flat-line bad. The rule was three and a half yards a pop, the chains moving, another long touchdown drive on the scoreboard. Fix the front seven, and you have a playoff team. Don't, and you have another six and eleven.

Welcome back to Muffed. Seven picks, no first-rounder — that capital got spent earlier rebuilding the defensive line — and a board-driven 2026 class that Zac Taylor said the word "upside" four times unprompted to describe. The headliner: Cashius Howell at pick 41, a Texas A&M edge who fell into Cincinnati's lap. The theme is athletic upside on defense, depth and flexibility on offense, and a deliberate bet that best-available beats reaching for fit.

Start with the pick that defines the class. Howell posted 12.5 sacks and 15 tackles for loss — first in the SEC, third nationally — and pairs that production with a Relative Athletic Score of 8.13. That's Kent Lee Platte's 0-to-10 grade benchmarking combine and pro-day testing against every player at the position since 1987, so 8.13 lands him in the top fifth of edge defenders ever measured. The motivator is uncomfortable: Cincinnati's 2025 pass defense bled plus 94.04 expected points added through the air and surrendered 33 passing touchdowns, and even 35 sacks couldn't mask the need for another live body off the edge. Taylor called Howell falling to 41 "a pleasant surprise." The secondary investment continued at pick 72 with Washington corner Tacario Davis — an 8.76 Relative Athletic Score and length Taylor called "enormous," comparing his frame to DJ Turner and Dax Hill. The catch: 20 tackles, zero interceptions, 4 pass breakups in an injury-shortened 2025. This bet is on traits and tape, not the box score. "He was injury-bugged a little bit this year," Taylor said. "He's a rare talent."

Flip to offense, where Cincinnati's 2025 passing attack finished at minus 18 expected points added with 24 turnovers — and the Day 3 response was cheap, athletic options for Joe Burrow. Georgia receiver Colbie Young at pick 140 put up 26 catches for 358 yards and a touchdown, but the number that pops is plus 0.67 predicted points added per play — the college equivalent of NFL expected points added. Elite-per-touch production in a limited role, backed by a 9.01 Relative Athletic Score, top tenth of receivers ever tested. Then at pick 221, Texas tight end Jack Endries — 33 catches, 346 yards, 3 touchdowns, an 8.84 Relative Athletic Score, and a Taylor mandate to compete behind Erick All "in all phases — special teams, run game, pass game."

The offensive line — which absorbed 36 sacks and 100 quarterback hits in 2025 — got two Day 3 darts. Auburn center Connor Lew headlines at pick 128, a 21-year-old interior anchor. Then Duke's Brian Parker II at 189, who Taylor was openly excited about for one reason: positional flexibility. Parker carries a 9.21 Relative Athletic Score at center — top seven percent of interior linemen ever measured — and Taylor said on a 1-to-10 rareness scale, a credible five-position lineman is closer to a 10. Developmental swing, real positional value baked in.

Last off the board: Navy nose tackle Landon Robinson at 226, who Taylor called "too good to pass up." Robinson's 64 tackles, 8 for loss, and 6 sacks ranked fourth in his conference — loud production for an interior defender at a service academy. His 9.45 Relative Athletic Score puts him in the top six percent of defensive tackles ever tested. Taylor coached him at the East-West Shrine Bowl, brought him in for a top-30 visit, and said he "checked every box." Cincinnati's 2025 run defense gave up 148 yards per game and 18 rushing touchdowns — Robinson's a depth bet with a real ceiling.

Pick of the draft? You can argue Davis on length and traits, but the answer is Howell, and the reason is scarcity. Cincinnati spent the entire offseason rebuilding the defensive front through trades and free agency, and landing an SEC sack leader at 41 — a guy their own mocks had going earlier — is the value-meets-need intersection that turns a class into a multi-year payoff. Davis is the higher-variance bet: injury history, empty interception column. Howell's floor is higher, his role is clearer, his tape doesn't require projection.

Looking ahead to 2026, the defensive line is no longer the question. Taylor's front now runs three-deep with veterans, second-year players, and rookies competing, and he said directly he's "really excited" about that room. Linebacker is the open question — Taylor admitted the board never gave them value there, so it's free agency or roll forward. The stress test: can Howell and Davis patch a pass defense that hemorrhaged expected points, while the offensive depth develops behind a Burrow group that has to stop turning it over 24 times a year? No first-rounder, no quarterback drama, no contract noise — just seven swings on athletes with real ceilings.