There are a lot of great options.
Here we sit. We’re into June and the Cincinnati Bengals continue their way through OTAs without their only consistent pass rusher and without their first-round pick. We’re not going to talk about it because there isn’t much of a point, and there won’t be new news until there is.
So how about something happy?
If you could go back in time and watch ANY Bengals game again for the very first time, which would you choose? There are a lot to choose from.
The easy answer, I think, would be to go back and enjoy the 2022 AFC Championship game, where the Bengals punched their ticket to Super Bowl LVI by defeating the Chiefs in overtime in Kansas City.
Another one would be their win over the Raiders in the jungle just a few weeks earlier, which was their first win in the playoffs in over 30 years. That almost seems more joyous of an occasion when I look back on it.
There are some older ones.
How about when Carson Palmer and Chad Johnson led the Bengals to an overwhelming 41-17 rout over the Lions in Detroit to win the division for the first time since 1990? I lived in Buffalo at the time, but I remember that game well, and enjoying it now again would be amazing.
Speaking of Buffalo, there’s the 2023 AFC Divisional round game in the snow against the Bills. The Bengals won that game 27-10 and dominated in such a way the score actually seems closer than the game was.
The 2015 season was special through the first three quarters. Andy Dalton was close to surgical, and was legitimately in MVP conversations until his injury in Week 14. The season took a bad turn there, and they suffered an absolute meltdown against the Steelers in the playoffs, but don’t you remember that game against the Seahawks earlier in the season? Dalton led the Bengals back from a 24-7 deficit in fourth quarter to win 27-24 in OT against the Legion of Boom.
There are even older games. Of course, there’s the Freezer Bowl, or the playoff wins from the Ken Anderson and Boomer Esiason-led teams. I wasn’t around for the former, and I barely remember the latter.
Hopefully, if this question is asked again in an early June a few years from now in the future, we can all say, “when Joe Burrow and the Bengals beat so-and-so in the Super Bowl.”
It feels like the first time
Feels like the very first time
It feels like the first time
It feels like the very first time