Bengals near the bottom of backup QB rankings

The Bengals are banking on No. 1 overall pick Joe Burrow being ready to make a major impact in his first NFL season.

But if Burrow goes down or gets benched, the guys behind him don’t inspire a lot of confidence, at least in Pro Football Focus’ ranking of all 32 teams’ backup quarterback situations.

The tandem of Ryan Finley and Jake Dolegala has Cincinnati ranked 27th in PFF’s backup quarterback ranking.

Tim Tebow was a more accurate QB during his career than Finley was in 2019. The Bengals’ 2019 fourth-round pick failed to lead the offense to more than 13 points in any of his three starts. Dolegala is back to again serve as the No. 3 QB. Look for the Bengals to compete for the No. 1 overall pick again if Joe Burrow is forced out of action for the majority of the season.

It’s hard to argue with the ranking after Finely was an unmitigated disaster as a rookie, while Dolegala never appeared in a regular-season game after a promising preseason. He absolutely deserves a real shot to win the backup spot behind Burrow, as it’s hard to be much worse than what Finley was in his first season.

But to be fair, the Bengals offense was a disaster much of the season whether it was Finley or Andy Dalton under center. With an improved offensive line, the return of A.J. Green, and the addition of second-round pick Tee Higgins, whoever is under center will have a much better shot of succeeding than last season.

Hopefully if Finley or Dolegala are forced into action, they’ll be good enough to keep the offense afloat.