LWOSports

As a Cincinnati native, there are a few things that I was taught to love from a very young age: Skyline Chili and the Cincinnati Bengals. Throughout my life, the Bengals have had their ups and downs. I didn’t see a winning season until I was seven years old, after that I didn’t see a consistently good team until 2011. Starting that year there was a five-year stretch where the Bengals made the playoffs every year. HOWEVER, they lost in the wildcard round EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR. The final year of that stretch included the single most heartbreaking game I have ever had to witness. (This might be the worst loss that any team has ever had, in the history of any sport, ever.) For anyone who doesn’t remember that nightmare of a game, the game started off with eight punts in a row, followed by a Steelers fumble then a Bengals interception. (Yuck) Then the Steelers kicked a field goal, then the Bengals punted it back to them, and the Steelers kicked another field goal with about 30 seconds left in the half. The third quarter features two Bengals fumbles and a field goal and a touchdown for the Steelers. Big Ben (my least favorite player of all time) gets hurt at the end of the third quarter so the Steelers have Landry Jones piloting them for the fourth quarter. So going into the fourth quarter the Steelers are winning 15-0, Bengals fans all over the country are drinking heavily, hoping that the pain will end soon. In the fourth quarter, the Bengals show some life. The quarter starts with a bad punt from the Steelers setting the Bengals up for what would be the turning point in the game. They drive and score. 15-7 Steelers. Steelers punt on the following drive. Bengals drive and kick a field goal. 15-10 Steelers. Steelers punt again. Bengals have the ball at the Pittsburgh 45 with just under three minutes to play. They drive and score; they go for two but don’t get it. 16-15 BENGALS. Steelers get the ball back and immediately Landry Jones throws an interception to the league’s favorite villain, Vontaze Burfict. The game is sealed. The Bengals have the ball at the Pittsburgh 26 with around a minute and forty-five seconds to go. All they have to do is run out the clock. The entire city of Cincinnati is going absolutely nuts, grown adults are crying, children are jumping for joy. Then IT happens. Jeremy Hill gets the ball up the middle and he fumbles the football. He fumbled it. He didn’t wrap up the ball with both arms and he fumbled it. The Steelers recover the ball. Big Ben comes back in with a barely functioning shoulder and they start driving. However, it doesn’t seem like it’s gonna be enough. Then the villain lives up to his reputation on a pass over the middle to Antonio Brown. Burfict gets called for unnecessary roughness on a shoulder to the head of AB. Following this call is chaos. There’s a skirmish. Steelers assistant coach Joey Porter comes on the field, which is against the rules and gets into a fight with another standup Bengals player, Adam “Pacman” Jones. Pacman pushes him and gets called for unsportsmanlike conduct. Suddenly the Steelers have the ball at the Cincinnati 17 and all they need is a field goal to win. Chris Boswell drills an easy 35 yarder and that’s the game. Bengals fans go back to their drinking and start cursing the name of Jeremy Hill for not covering the football. Following that heartbreaking loss, the Bengals have sunken into mediocrity. Marvin Lewis got a questionable extension two seasons later. (By questionable I mean that it made zero sense whatsoever.) Bengals fans, to this day, support the team. (God knows how.) It could be the exciting players we seem to always have. Players like A.J. Green, Tyler Eifert, Chad Johnson/Ochocinco, Rudi Johnson, Carlos Dunlap, and Terrell Owens (briefly). I really will never know why we continue to love them after they continuously break our hearts and seemingly try to keep the franchise as average as possible. But alas, I and the city of Cincinnati continue to do it. There is something to be said for a fanbase that puts up with a constantly unimpressive team. We love the Bengals, but we also hate the fact that this is who we cheer for. Will we ever change? No, we will not. We will bleed orange and black until the day we die. Who Dey.

P.S. Even if the team leaves the city, they will always be the same sad, disappointing Bengals that we know and love.