The Bengals seem to realize there’s not much hope of winning the AFC North after Thursday night’s loss to the Ravens.
Cincinnati is now 5-5, two and a half games behind the division-leading Ravens and one and a half games behind both the Steelers and Browns. The Bengals’ 0-3 division record also makes winning tiebreakers unlikely. The AFC North is now a three-team race.
But Bengals cornerback Mike Hilton says that’s a far cry from saying the season is over. Hilton said after the loss to the Ravens that the Bengals hope to get Joe Burrow back and healthy and make some noise as a wild card.
“It’s big. He’s a top two quarterback in this league,” Hilton said, via Bengals.com. “It definitely makes it harder, but no excuses. Next man up. Especially on the defense and we have to turn our notch up a little more and try to get our offense on short fields. We feel like he’ll be ready for next week. The division might be out of reach, but we still have a chance to get to the playoffs and that’s our main goal. I feel like if we get to the playoffs, we’ll be a scary team to face.”
With a healthy Burrow, the Bengals would certainly be a dangerous wild card team. But at this point they’re going to need to step up their game down the stretch just to make that happen. At the moment, Cincinnati looks more likely to miss the playoffs altogether.