The Bengals have nine games left to make the playoffs. Let’s see what’s in store:

1. Remaining Schedules: The Bengals have the easiest remaining schedule out of the top three AFC North teams. I’m hoping that that will pave the way for a division title. The Steelers have the second easiest. The Ravens have some really tough games left to play. They’ve got the Colts and two games against the Steelers, along with the Packers and the Bears. I’m hoping those four games alone will knock them out of contention… BUT

2. The News of the Ravens Demise has been Greatly Exaggerated: Okay, I think I fell into the camp of, “Ha! The Ravens aren’t really that good anymore!” after their three losses. Well, those three losses were all at the last second. If Clayton catches it on fourth down against the Patriots, if they didn’t have those penalties against the Bengals at the end of the game, and if the field goal against the Vikings goes through, they’d be undefeated right now. After the 30-7 shellacking of the Broncos, they aren’t going anywhere. Which leads me to…

3. Dog-Fight for the Division: Outside of the NFC East (which really isn’t looking all that great anymore with the Giants looking pretty bad), the AFC North might have the three best teams out of any division in football. Arguments, anyone? Seriously, whoever wins the division (God, let it be the Bengals. Please? Pretty please?) will have definitely earned it. Peter King of Sports Illustrated listed all three teams in his top ten… with the Bengals listed behind both the Steelers and Ravens. C’mon, Pete! We beat both of them! Okay, they were both at the last second, but a win is a win, Pete! You gotta give them more credit, especially after the convincing win against the Bears.

4. Hard Games will be Hard; Easy Games… will also be Hard. Out of the nine games, we face four really tough teams: Ravens, Steelers, Vikings, and Chargers. Four bad teams: Browns, Raiders, Chiefs, and Lions. And one mediocre team: Jets. Look, the Bengals haven’t given me any confidence that they’ll beat all the teams that they “should” beat. I can see them losing to the Jets or the Lions, or even (gasp) the Raiders. The Bengals have played down to their competition this year (Browns and to a lesser extent, the Texans). However, I don’t see them losing to the Browns because they’ve given them their one tough game of the year and the Bengals usually blow them out the second game. The other challenging games are all toss-ups. I hope they can come out and play like they did against the Bears, but there are no guarantees. I’m thinking the Bengals will have to go 6-3 for the rest of the way to guarantee at least a wild card berth. And if we don’t win at least one of the next two games against the Ravens and the Steelers, they’re in trouble. Speaking of which…

5. History: Says that the Bengals normally play the Ravens very well when they’re at home. They also play the Steelers well on the road… I’m just saying. I feel quasi-semi-sort-of-confident about the next two games. But the nervousness is definitely still there. I’m wondering which Bengals team will show up coming out of the bye week.

6. How about some love for the non-stars?: I’m looking for someone not named Chad Ochocinco to have a big receiving game. Namely Lavernaeus Coles and Chris Henry. Neither have had a 100-yard receiving game yet. Somebody’s bound to. Also, I hope they don’t drive Cedric Benson into the ground. He leads the league in carries and we’ve got two very good back ups in Bernard Scott and Brian Leonard. Why not use them more?

7. Public Apology for Public Criticism: I’d like to apologize to fellow GUFS writer Tyson Heck for posting a comment that criticized a grammatical issue in his Ravens blog. It was unprofessional and unwarranted. I make mistakes all the time too. I did not mean anything malicious by it. Tyson is a very good writer and I recommend his blog to anyone who cares about football.

Well, there is more to talk about, but I’ll save some of that for my Bengals-Ravens preview later on this week. As for now, let’s go Phillies!