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With the Bengals on their bye week, defensive end Carlos Dunlap got the chance to spend time on ESPN's NFL pregame show and Sports Center Sunday morning.
Dunlap is having a great season with 6.5 sacks through Cincinnati's 6-0 start, but he knows a hot start and even a great regular season does not equal postseason success. Since being drafted in the second round out of Florida in the 2010 NFL Draft, Dunlap's teams have been to the playoffs four times, but have failed to get a playoff win.
That's a big reason why he and the rest of the Bengals are not reading the headlines regarding the team being a title contender and one of the best teams in football. Instead, Dunlap and his teammates are focused on whoever is next on the schedule, and hope to keep that mentality until the season is complete.
"We've been able to do some really good things," Dunlap said. "I don't think there's many teams that have been able to go four years in a row (to the playoffs), so that's an interesting stat, but that's not good enough for us. That's one of the reasons why we're not reading into this 6-0 stuff so far."
"It's too early. It's too early, because like you said, you can have the best regular season and not have the best postseason. So right now, we're taking it week to week. We're gonna win all of our games that are (coming) the next week, and next week we have the Pittsburgh Steelers, and then we'll go from there. And when we get to the playoffs, we're going to focus the same way."
Here is the full video: