The Bengals are heading to Western New York to take on the Bills on Sunday and the oddsmakers aren’t exactly believing in last year’s conference champion.
Buffalo is a five-point favorite over Cincinnati for the divisional-round matchup. That’s pretty much par for the course, as even though the Bengals won the AFC in 2021, they weren’t widely thought of as a team that could make it back to the Super Bowl for a second consecutive year.
Head coach Zac Taylor was asked about that perception during his Wednesday press conference.
“We know that we’re the defending AFC Champions. So, there’s an edge to this team where we’re not an underdog to anybody,” Taylor said. “And so, I think that’s just been the feeling we’ve had all season.
“We don’t really care what anybody else says about us. We know we belong in the field with every team in this league.”
The Bengals haven’t lost since falling to the Browns on Halloween, winning nine straight games. Of course, their Week 17 matchup with Buffalo was canceled. But that does set up for a unique preparation process, as Cincinnati just got ready to play the Bills a few weeks ago and didn’t end up using a lot of the game plan.
“We just did this with Baltimore, playing them back-to-back weeks,” Taylor said. “It is a little bit unusual the way that the season has unfolded for us in the last four weeks in terms of playing two opponents over the last 28 days. Our guys have handled it well. … They understand the process we follow each week and they’ve done a good job handling it all.”