Cincinnati Bengals: Players to watch vs. Ravens in Week 17

A few particular Cincinnati Bengals to watch as the team tries to finish their disappointing season on a high note against the Baltimore Ravens.

We’ve finally reached the end of the season, and for the Cincinnati Bengals, it couldn’t come any sooner. After yet another grueling loss to Pittsburgh and a couple of NFC North blowouts, the team quickly went from having slim playoff hopes to playing out the string for most of the remaining weeks of the season.

They did break that losing streak last week against the Detroit Lions however, and while their season won’t be going beyond this coming weekend, there is something for this team to still play for.

This week, they face their rivals, the Baltimore Ravens. A win here can not only avenge the vomit-inducing shutout which opened Cincinnati’s season, but it may well end up be able to prevent the Ravens from making a return to the postseason themselves.

Here are a few players who will be key to this team successfully playing the role of spoiler — and more importantly, who could give themselves a head start on securing a spot on next year’s roster:

3. Carl Lawson

In the early goings of the season, the Cincinnati defense was quite an underrated group. While the team couldn’t seem to win games, the burden of those issues fell almost exclusively on the offense; the other side was meanwhile making life rough for their opposition. The defensive line was the main strength for the unit, and their success tracked right along with how well their exciting new rookie was playing.

Lawson started making his presence known in the first super-important game of Cincinnati’s season, garnering 2.5 sacks against the Packers in the eventual overtime defeat. The sacks haven’t stopped there either; his 8.5 are second only to the indomitable Geno Atkins (9.0).

Lawson has been in somewhat of a drought recently, however. After getting at least a half-sack for three straight weeks in November, he immediately went on to pick up zero in three straight games. A sack against the Lions broke the slump though, and he now has a decent shot at reaching double-digit sacks for the season with this matchup against Baltimore.

Baltimore bookends their offensive line with Ronnie Stanley and Austin Howard; neither has been terrible, but they are each beatable. Stanley has taken a step back in his second season. Howard is on the low end of average this year in what has been a wildly fluctuating career.

Lawson has been one of the clear bright spots in another lost season for Cincinnati; seeing him succeed against beatable competition and end his first season with an impressive sack milestone would be not only a nice ending for his first year, but a way to cement his status as the future leader of the pass rush for this squad long-term.