Yes, I thought the Las Vegas “over/under” odds of 6.5 wins were light, but when the Bengals lost back-to-back home games to the Los Angeles Chargers and San Francisco 49ers to fall to 7-6, who thought the Bengals were going to the Super Bowl?
Certainly not me. And I have had season tickets to the Bengals ever since they existed.
I was 12 on December 25, 1967, when I opened a letter that was sitting under the Christmas tree.
It was a promise from my dad … a promise of season tickets in my name to the newly minted Cincinnati Bengals. There weren’t any tickets … there wasn’t even a schedule as yet. But my parents had had season tickets to the Cleveland Browns from 1951-1964, and when the Bengals were established after we moved across the state, my dad didn’t think twice about following this new franchise.
There was so much excitement – and that’s an excitement that carries over to winning teams everywhere. Whether it’s the Bengals, the Reds, area college teams, as well as the high school athletic experience – when your sports teams are winning, there is a certain “pep in your step” that comes with being a fan of that team. Sports brings communities together.
I count myself fortunate to have always kept those seats my dad had the foresight to buy, now 54 seasons later and counting. There have been some great days – and some dismal days. I did not attend either Super Bowl following the 1981 and 1988 seasons, star-crossed games that still haunt longtime Bengals fans.
The Bengals trailed the 49ers 20-0 at halftime of Super Bowl XVI, on an icy day in Detroit that had people abandoning their cars on their way to the Pontiac Silverdome. And they led 16-13 in the final minute of Super Bowl XXIII in Miami, before 49ers quarterback Joe Montana made his bones with a TD pass to John Taylor.
So many Bengals fans gave up during the lost seasons of 1991 through 2002. The Bengals went a dismal 55-137 in that period, with the “best” record being 8-8. The team was cratering, just like so many Rust Belt cities.
Head coach Marvin Lewis restored some legitimacy to the Bengals from 2003 through 2018, but he couldn’t quite lift the Bengals to the next level. Here’s the reality of eight straight playoff losses from January 1991 to this season: The Bengals never scored more than 17 points in any of them. Would we ever win another playoff game?
Thanks to quarterback Joe Burrow, who won’t abide the underdog Bungles mentality that has so many of us seeing ghosts. But when the Las Vegas Raiders had first-and-goal at the Bengals’ 9-yard-line in the last minute of the playoff opener on Jan. 15, we couldn’t help but think, “Uh-oh … here we go again.”
Nope. Not this team. Not with the confident Burrow and a cast of believers.
So now, there’s this: I’m going to the Super Bowl. That’s not a sentence I ever expected to write, either. But there it is. #WhoDey!
Dirk Q. Allen was a sports writer and sports editor of the Hamilton Journal News from 1979-1993.
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