Rich Checks In on His ‘Bengals Win the AFC North’ Preseason Prediction

Rich weaves tapestries. He connects things. And every so often, he admits a thread is fraying.

"Sometimes I'll just admit, you know, my opinion seems to be off or my opinion was dead wrong," he said on The Rich Eisen Show. "Right now, my opinion that the Bengals are going to win the AFC North appears to be a little off."

The reason is Baltimore. The Ravens are 3-1 and, in Rich's words, one collapse at home against the Saints away from being 4-0. Zay Flowers, when healthy, "is a difference making wide receiver. He has become that." Derrick Henry "is just as good as they get." Defensively, Jesse Minter "is getting them rolling."

There are caution flags. Lamar Jackson tweaked his ankle and did not finish against Tennessee, and an interesting Sunday night trip to Atlanta is up next in week five. Still, Rich's read is clear: "Baltimore looks like the best team in this division with all due respect to the 3-1 Browns."

Those Browns are worth watching. Cleveland visits the Jets in week five while Baltimore is in Atlanta, and then the Ravens head to Cleveland in week six. "That could be 4-1 versus 4-1," Rich said. "Look out below."

Pittsburgh sits at 2-2 after a week four loss in Cleveland, with Indianapolis coming in fresh from London. Rich's game plan for the Steelers was simple: stop Jonathan Taylor and dare Daniel Jones to beat you, with T.J. Watt and Cam Heyward, a Tuesday guest on the show, coming after him. "The Colts are just an interesting two and two team, but this guy's the difference maker," Rich said of Taylor. "Just stop him and go through him on the way to the quarterback and Pittsburgh could be three and two." The crew noted Aaron Rodgers has been really good the last two weeks.

Then the team Rich put his marker on. Cincinnati sits at 2-2 after a brutal afternoon. Ja'Marr Chase had his helmet yanked and was out with a concussion. Tee Higgins was doing his thing and Mike Gesicki got into the end zone, but then Higgins got banged up too. That left Joe Burrow "to his own devices," and he "wound up not being able to pull the rabbit out of the hat this time around." The defense is better, Rich said, and the team still is not above .500 through four games.

Burrow refused to panic. "Certainly this isn't Armageddon or anything," he said afterward. "We're still in a great spot and, you know, feel really good about our team." He added that "you can't ride the roller coaster of the week to week. You're going to win some, you're going to lose some."

The set immediately joked that it sounded like a man about to play in Miami, where weird stuff happens. Rich took the bait with a story from his 2007 book, NFL Total Access, about how Tom Brady and Peyton Manning joined other quarterbacks to petition the league to bring their own footballs on the road. They believed the Dolphins would break out a fresh, slick ball right out of the box just when a visiting team needed a two-minute drill.

Rich admitted that was "a very low-hanging fruit way" of setting up his real point: Burrow is wise enough to know things can turn. "That's also spoken like a guy who's got Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins at his disposal when he's healthy," Rich said, plus what looks like a better defense, and he is just a game back.

The schedule backs him up. After Miami comes a bye, then the trip to Baltimore. "Come up with that one and now we're suddenly having a completely different conversation," Rich said. Then Tennessee at home, a flight to Spain to face Atlanta, and the division games. "Some winnable games on their schedule again."

Rich knows some people want a cleaner take, either this team sucks and is finished or the opposite. He is not giving them one. "It's just a fact," he said. Not to go old Joe Burrow on anyone, but it is that way.