Super (Surprising) Bowl
If you’re a regular visitor of any sports website, you’ve probably seen clickbait lists titled “The Most Championship-Deprived Cities” or “Top Ten Longest-Suffering Franchises.” Without fail, Cincinnati, and the Bengals in particular, appear at or near the top of these lists. And deservedly so. For the better part of three decades, the Bengals franchise as a whole has been a laughingstock, so much so that even casual football fans know them as the “Bungles.” The organization bungled coaching decisions. Drafting decisions. Player character evaluation. Player development. And of course, the football games themselves. You name it, the Bengals bungled it.
In the off-years when the Bengals fared well enough in the regular season to earn postseason berths, their playoff performances were masterclasses in the art of bungling. They suffered first-round losses in 2005, 2009, and all five seasons between 2011 and 2015. And four of these seven losses were at their home stadium!
Cincinnatians often refer to the nineties, when the Bengals were at their absolute worst, as the “lost decade.” But for superfans like me, it truly has been three lost decades.
For reasons that still escape me, I never abandoned my hometown team. As a kid, Sunday afternoons meant three demoralizing hours in front of the tv or, for the many games that were blacked out locally due to insufficient attendance, next to my handheld radio. During college in Boston, I was generally spared from watching their debacles, although the scoreboard ticker on the bottom of the screen was a constant reminder of their (and my) misfortune. On occasion I braved raucous Boston sports bars to glimpse the Bengals’ destruction firsthand. But to save my wallet and my dignity, I kept these outings to a minimum.
At the time, the New England Patriots were ascending to the top of the league and building one of the greatest dynasties the sport has ever seen. As happy as I was for my Patriots-loving friends, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t bitter.
I refused to abandon my lowly Bengals. After college, I got their logo tattooed on my right arm. In the same year, two sympathetic friends joined me on a blizzardy, debauchery-fueled weekend road trip from Boston to Cincinnati to attend a home game. My fervor could not be extinguished.
In the early 2000s, a segment of Bengals fans finally abandoned ship. Disheartened by a dozen years of losing, bamboozled by a penny-pinching owner who threatened to relocate the team unless taxpayers funded a new stadium, and disgusted by said owner’s refusal to modernize the team’s facilities or methods of operation, many Cincinnatians could no longer justify wasting their money or energy on their once-beloved team. While I too felt cheated and deflated, I just couldn’t let the Bengals go.
When I moved to Chicago after graduate school, I had another opportunity to adopt a new, perhaps less dysfunctional, team. I rooted for the Bears, albeit unenthusiastically, but my heart was still firmly with Cincinnati. And unsurprisingly, my heart continued to get broken. Yet every August when the team reported to training camp, I seemed to forget the pain of the prior season(s). I overlooked the organization’s offseason actions (and inaction) and naively thought that things would be different. I fantasized that the Bengals would miraculously find a way to win a single playoff game. Just one meaningful victory to rationalize three decades of defeat. Was that asking for too much?
After the Bengals secured the league’s worst record in 2019, I realized that yes, I was definitely asking for too much. At that point, I knew I had to take a step (or two) back and become less emotionally invested. The never-ending disappointment was exhausting. So, prior to the 2020 season, I completely reset my expectations (i.e., I had none whatsoever). I still followed the team and even watched an occasional game, but I never expected them to win, and I certainly didn’t expect them to make the playoffs. This more casual approach instantly liberated me from the burdens of Bengal fandom.
Fast forward two years, and the Bengals are somehow appearing in their first Super Bowl since 1989. This year’s unlikely postseason run has shocked the entire sports world, with the exception of the Bengals’ players themselves. To me, it still doesn’t seem real. As recently as a few weeks ago, I was positive the Bengals would never make it to another Super Bowl. Yet, here we are, two seasons removed from a 2-14 record.
Most of the country will be rooting for the underdog Bengals on Sunday, nobody as passionately as the Cincinnatians who have survived three decades of defeat, despair, and demoralization. Long ago, I vowed to crack open my six-pack of commemorative Hu-Dey beer from 1989 for a celebratory drink, should the Bengals ever win a championship. Now that a crown is legitimately within reach though, I’m reconsidering that promise. After all, this Bengals fan has suffered enough.