All the Cincinnati Bengals can do is sit back and watch on their Week 10 bye, wondering how they could possibly have blown the chance to be a 5-4 football team instead of a lowly 3-6 outfit.
It's not a mystery as to why Cincinnati is in this mess, and has zero margin for error coming out of the bye. The defense is historically atrocious. We'll talk about the bigger-picture implications of that in the harsh truth portion of this article.
But you know what? Who cares if the 2025 Bengals need to go 8-0 or 7-1 to guarantee a shot at the playoffs?