The Cincinnati Bengals entered the 2020 season as mostly an afterthought. Cincinnati had the third-longest odds of any NFL team to win the Super Bowl at 150/1, tied with the Jets and ahead of only the lowly Texans and Lions. Sophomore quarterback Joe Burrow was a question mark coming off a torn ACL, and coach Zac Taylor had won just six of his 32 games with the team.

Six months later, they were on the cusp of winning Super Bowl LVI, coming within two minutes of pulling off one of the biggest Cinderella stories of all time.

Which team will be next year’s Bengals? Could it be the Jets or Giants?

The Jets are just as much a long shot as they were entering last season, but this team is ready to take a step forward.

The Jets did beat the Bengals after all, and the eventual 1-seed Titans, too. They also pushed the playoff-bound Buccaneers and Bills all the way over the final two weeks, showing serious improvement from early in the year.

The Jets never had a chance in the trenches or secondary, two areas where it’s nearly possible to overcome a slew of injuries (Carl Lawson, Mekhi Becton, Marcus Maye). But New York enters the offseason top-five in cap space, and the return of Lawson and Corey Davis will make this a double crop of free agents. The Jets also have more draft capital than any team — with four picks in the top 38, including No. 4 and No. 10.

The Jets actually took a real step forward. Despite everything, they improved from 32nd to 26th in Football Outsiders’ DVOA, and their 32nd-ranked defense this season can only improve with better health. The Jets won four games but deserved 5.8 wins.

Zach Wilson could take a big step forward as a sophomore, and so could Robert Saleh and this young, innovative coaching staff. The Jets also saw rookies Elijah Moore and Michael Carter get going late, so that could spark the offense. All signs point to a serious step forward for the Jets next season — the only question is how far.

The Giants don’t have a sophomore quarterback, but they’ll need a big leap from Daniel Jones. He has quietly improved in completion percentage, interception rate and sack rate each of his three seasons, though he’s still a long way from good or even average.

What’s interesting about Jones, though, is that the best hope for his career arc at this point is probably Josh Allen — a similarly strong runner with a big arm who took a couple years to find his way before breaking out. And whom did Allen break out under? Why, new Giants head coach Brian Daboll!

The year before his breakout, Allen completed 59 percent of his passes, fumbled 14 times and was sacked 7.6 percent of the time. Jones has a career 63 percent completion percentage and 7.6 percent sack rate and averages 12 fumbles per season. He’s already matched Allen’s bad — could he match his good now too with Daboll?

There’s plenty of help — if Saquon Barkley, Kenny Golladay, Kadarius Toney, Sterling Shepard and Evan Engram stay healthy — plus a talented defense that finished around league average and brought in longtime Ravens coordinator Wink Martindale to take them to the next level. The G-Men need major offensive line help, but they can start rebuilding with the No. 5- and 7-overall picks.

Still, the Giants are sure to see some cap casualties, and this will all come down to how much Daboll can get out of Danny Dimes.