Ranked seventh in the AFC, the Bengals enter Week 1 with everything still unproven up front

The Cincinnati Bengals spent the past week putting the finishing touches on a roster that no longer resembles the one that stumbled to a 6-11 finish a season ago. The 53-man group is set, the practice squad is stocked, and Ke’Shawn Williams earned his opening-day spot with a speech teammates still can’t stop talking about. Yet as the Bengals flew through the final cutdowns, one headline kept following them out of the league office: NFL executives still see Cincinnati as only the seventh-best team in the AFC — with the offensive line remaining their biggest doubt.

That doubt is grounded in hard numbers. In 2025, the Bengals allowed 492 points — more than 28 per game — and cycled through Joe Burrow, Joe Flacco, and Jake Browning at quarterback. Burrow attempted just 259 passes on the season and absorbed 36 sacks, a 12.2% sack rate that ranked among the league's most discouraging marks for a franchise quarterback. When the franchise's most important asset can't stay upright, no amount of receiving talent can matter.

So the front office went out and bought reassurance. Ja’Marr Chase signed a four-year, $161 million extension, Tee Higgins got his long-term deal, and the Bengals went into training camp with their entire aerial arsenal locked up. Then they spent the summer adding bodies across the roster, from the defensive front to the skill positions. On paper, this is a team that fixed its most expensive problem.

But paper doesn't block for Joe Burrow. And the Bengals' own actions over the last week suggest they know it. On Sept. 2, the team signed swing tackle Blake Freeland to the practice squad — a move one outlet described as completely reshaping the club's critical tackle depth. A practice-squad addition shouldn't move the needle for a contender. That it generated this much chatter is a tell that Cincinnati still isn't entirely comfortable with the five (or six) men responsible for protecting the franchise.

There's also the DJ Turner situation simmering in the background. According to reports from Sept. 2, the Bengals' rumored approach to extending the young cornerback is "predictable" — the same slow-play tactic that created drama with Chase and Higgins before they were eventually paid. After watching the Bengals modernize their payroll philosophy this offseason, Turner watching from the sideline is the kind of familiar friction that can quietly turn into a training-camp-sized distraction, except now it arrives during the regular season.

The good news for Cincinnati is that the market hasn't lost faith. For Sunday's opener against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Paycor Stadium, Cincinnati is a 3.5-point favorite with a -200 moneyline attached to an implied probability of about 67%. The over/under sits at 50.5. Oddsmakers clearly believe the feel-good offseason translates to an opening-weekend win.

Executives around the league aren't so sure, and their skepticism is fair. The Bengals' offensive line question predates last season's quarterback carousel. It was the same concern before the injury luck went bad, and it's the same concern now, even after Orlando Brown Jr., Amarius Mims, and company got a fresh chance to make it right. Against a Buccaneers front that will test the edges early, Cincinnati gets an immediate referendum on whether that rebuilt protection holds up.

This is a team that paid its stars, added depth, and silenced most of its offseason critics. The roster is set and the schedule is waiting. But between Blake Freeland's signing and an executive poll ranking them seventh in the conference, the Bengals know exactly what they have to prove in Week 1: that the wall in front of Joe Burrow is finally real.