After seven weeks of the 2009 NFL Season the Cincinnati Bengals have a 5-2 record. Many people this year were unsure about how the Bengals would come out of the gate mainly because of the fiasco last year. So far this year the Bengals have been anything but consistent and I’m still unsure about what to think of this team. They are sitting in first place in the AFC North right now, but the Steelers have a 5-2 record as well. The Bengals are only winning the division right now because they beat the Steelers in week 3.
The Cincinnati offence had a rough first week, but since then they have been waking up a bit. The offence averages 23.3 points per game which is good for 15th in the league right now. Being in the middle of the pack for points per game isn’t great, but when you have a stellar defence like the Bengals it will do. One place the Bengals have really improved in this year is at running the ball. Cedric Benson is basically receiving all of the rushes so far this season and he has 720 yards on 164 attempts. Cedric also has 5 TD’s on the season and I’m sure that he will easily get over 10TD’s this season.
Just like in recent years past Chad Ochocinco is the leading receiver on the Bengals team. Chad has already caught 39 balls this season for 573 yards and 5TD’s. The fact Ochocinco is catching the ball doesn’t surprise me, but what does surprise me a bit is how many players on the Bengals have caught the ball this season. Carson Palmer was injured most of last season and it caused the Bengals team to basically fold. This year though, Palmer is back at QB and so far he has been leading his team to wins. Seven Bengal players already have more then 10 catches on the season after only seven games.
Now that we’ve taken a look at the football betting offence lets take a quick look at the Bengals defence. The Bengals defence so far this season has allowed 18.3 points per game which is 9th in the league. Another remarkable statistic is that they are only giving up 88 yards rushing per game which is 5th best in the league right now after week 7. The defence have also picked off the ball 8 times which is more then 1 per game. The 8 INTS have come from Jonathon Joseph, Leon Hall and Chris Crocker.
The Bengals are fairly lucky to be sitting in first place right now in their division simply because they have had some last minute victories this season. The biggest victory of the season came against the Ravens when the Bengals were able to move down the field in the final minute to score a TD on the stingy Ravens defence. If the defence continues playing as good as they are and the offence can keep playing like they did in week 7 then I think that Cincinnati has a great NFL Odds chance at winning the division this year. It would be a remarkable upset for the Bengals to beat the Steelers in the AFC North, but it looks to be taking shape nicely over the past couple weeks.