The 2025 Bengals are eerily similar to a Cincinnati team from 20 years ago

AtoZ Sports

John Sheeran discusses how the 2025 Cincinnati Bengals mirror the Bengals from 2005.

Transcript

00:00The Bengals have been busy telling us how they expect to win games this season and it would

00:03actually match how they put together one of their better seasons in franchise history. So in this

00:08video I'll explain what the vision of the 2025 Bengals really is. Hi again Bengals fans, John

00:17Sheeran of A to Z Sports Cincinnati here and I've been thinking more and more about the vision of

00:22this Bengals team. Not necessarily the end goal, right? The goal is obviously very simple. It's

00:27make it back to the playoffs and win a Super Bowl for the first time in franchise history. It's not

00:31just about what you're trying to do but how they're trying to do it. And it seems relatively simple,

00:37right? They put their money where their mouth is at least on the offensive side of the ball

00:40by paying both Jamar Chase and Tee Higgins and continuing to surround Joe Burrow with elite

00:45weapons and take advantage of his, you know, elite play at quarterback. And on the defensive side of

00:49the ball the message has been it's not necessarily about a lack of talent there but a lack of direction

00:54and proper coaching that meshes with the overall youth of the group. So that's who the Bengals are

00:59right now. They are a proven fire-powered offense built around superstars with a defense that is

01:04hungry and motivated to be at least a little bit better than where they were last year thanks to

01:09the direction of a lot of new coaches and a new defensive coordinator and now Golden. And when

01:13thinking more and more about this it got me thinking about are there any past Bengals teams in

01:17franchise history who were either built like this or had to win in a certain way that these Bengals would

01:23have to win in order to get better than where they were the last two years. And it's honestly so fitting

01:27that in the year 2025 you can go back exactly 20 years ago to find another Bengals team that best fits

01:33this description. And for the long-time Bengals fans watching you know exactly which team I'm talking

01:37about the 2005 Bengals. At this time two decades ago the Bengals had not been back to the playoffs

01:43since the beginning of the 1990s. It was a lost decade obviously and then Marvin Lewis came in

01:48in the beginning of the 2000s and he put together an offense that was built to compete with any team

01:53in the league. In 2005 you had Carson Palmer quarterback Chad Johnson and T.J. Hushmanzada

01:58wide receivers all entering their primes all having just been paid by the Bengals and under contract for

02:03the foreseeable future. Palmer ended up leaving the league in completion percentage and passing

02:06touchdowns. Johnson was the first team all pro and had one of the best seasons of his career

02:10and Hushmanzada was a very strong number two receiver despite missing a handful of games. If those

02:14aren't exact parallels to Joe Burrow, Jamar Chase, and T. Higgins I don't know what are and I would

02:19be remiss if I didn't mention that Rudy Johnson ran the ball over 300 times and over 1,400 yards and

02:2412 touchdowns and didn't even make a pro bowl by the way. But that passing game was truly elite behind

02:28a really good offensive line and it's what carried the team more times than not. They were second behind

02:32only the Indianapolis Colts in the prime of Peyton Manning's career in terms of offensive drives that

02:36ended up in scores. They were fourth in both yards per play and points per game. They were an elite

02:40offense through and through. Defensively it was a completely different story and quite

02:44frankly at times a more entertaining story. The 2005 Bengals defense lived and died by creating

02:51turnovers. 20 years have gone by since then and still to this day only seven other defenses since

02:562000 forced more turnovers than the 44 that the Bengals forced in 2005. 23% of the drives teams had

03:05against the Bengals ended up in a turnover. That's basically one in four. They couldn't sack the

03:09quarterback. They couldn't stop the run. They were giving up explosive plays in the passing game.

03:12Everything was bad except for the frequency in which they got their hands on the ball. And this

03:17even more so than the clear direct parallels to the offense is why I'm thinking about the 2005 Bengals

03:23when looking at the 2025 Bengals. Because there's been a common theme and message with this defense

03:28ever since Golden took over in late January. Forcing more turnovers. Forcing more turnovers is one of the

03:34very first points of emphasis that Golden listed out after he was introduced as DC saying quote,

03:39our number one job is to support our quarterback and people are like, what does that mean? We've

03:44got to go get the ball. That's our number one job. Give him opportunities. And how is that

03:49translating in practices? Well, let's fast forward five months and ask linebacker Logan Wilson saying

03:53quote, they're practicing forcing turnovers more than they did in previous seasons. The biggest thing

03:58is turnovers. Get the ball back as much as we can. Pretty much every day in some form or fashion,

04:03we practice it. Turnovers when you're getting the ball really just boil down to two different kinds,

04:07there's just interceptions and there's fumbles, but there's a variety of ways in which you can

04:11achieve either of those outcomes. Tip passes that become interceptions, strip sacks, punching the

04:15ball out, whatever you can do to go get the ball and give the offense even more possessions to put up

04:20more points on the board. That seems to be the number one goal of this defense, even if it's not

04:25the most talented or well-constructed of any in the league. The 05 Bengals won 11 games that season.

04:30They won the AFC North. They hosted a playoff game that they unfortunately lost primarily because

04:35Carson Palmer went down with a knee injury on the very first play. But what if Palmer didn't get

04:39injured? That offense was still firing on all cylinders and there was a very good chance that

04:43they could have done some damage in the postseason and may have made it to the Super Bowl. They could

04:47put up points and they could prevent the defense from putting up just as many because they kept

04:50taking the ball away. And that is the exact vision of the Bengals exactly two decades later.

04:55An obvious coincidence to be sure, but it's better to know how you need to win with a flawed roster

05:00than a stacked roster with no vision at all. The Bengals seem to believe that they do have a vision

05:04and recent history would suggest that they may have a point.

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