Ranking Steelers and their rivals by chances to win AFC North

1st: Cincinnati Bengals

Lastly, to the shock of absolutely no one, we have the Cincinnati Bengals as the AFC North’s most likely victors for next year.

The Bengals have easily taken over as the face of the North in the still-new Joe Burrow era, with their last two runs reaching far beyond divisional titles. This season saw them fall just short of taking the AFC while last season saw them take it before falling just short of winning Super Bowl LVI.

This is not to say that the Bengals are beyond struggling with their rivals, as they entered this postseason with a 1-1 record against each of them.

However, if the Bengals can do enough over the course of their entire schedule to win the North for the second year in a row (especially if they’re doing so while exhibiting their overall superiority as well as they have), that’s enough to convince me that they deserve being labeled as the leaders of the pack until further notice.

The AFC North has consistently been praised over the years for both the competitive nature of its members and the intense rivalry games we can get from them as a result. Based on what we got this season, I firmly believe that next season will be more of the same.

But, with that said, there will nonetheless be a clear-cut hierarchy within the division by the time its games are all said and done, and I would be willing to bet that this is how said hierarchy will look.