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When there's a preseason, there's power rankings, polls, predictions and lists of all sorts. We're doing it with our top-20 Bengals players of 2012 and recently our training camp preview (well that wasn't so much a prognostication as it is our overjoyed reaction that training camp is near). Pro Football Talk is releasing their preseason Power Rankings, listing Cincinnati at No. 15, concluding:
For now, they fairly land in the middle of the pack. If they rise, it’ll happen because they’ve developed an ability to topple the elite teams in their division and conference. If they fall, it’ll trace to an overall inability to adjust to the expectations that flow from a nucleus of young, big-name players who overachieved as rookies.
Either way, it’s unlikely they’ll finish in the middle of the pack when the dust settles on the 2012 season.
We have to admit. It's somewhat of a reasonable conclusion.