Cincinnati Bengals

Overview

The Cincinnati Bengals are a National Football League (NFL) team that, since 2002, has played in the American Football Conference (AFC) North; between 1970 and 2002, the Bengals played in the AFC Central division. The Bengals were formerly in the American Football League (AFL) before that league merged with the NFL in 1970. The Bengals are one of two professional sports franchises located in Cincinnati, the other being the Cincinnati Reds of Major League Baseball (MLB). The Cincinnati area represents one of the smallest markets in the NFL.

Quick Facts

Inaugural season: 1968

Home field: Paycor Stadium (formerly Paul Brown Stadium), Cincinnati, Ohio

Owner: Mike Brown

Team colors: Orange, black, white

The Bengals have seen mixed success as a professional football franchise. They were a considerable force in the 1970s and especially the 1980s, reaching the Super Bowl after the 1981 and 1988 seasons, though they lost both times. The team then struggled heavily throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, failing to post a winning record for fourteen years and not returning to the playoffs until 2005. Though they subsequently had several strong regular seasons, postseason success remained elusive, and their playoff-win drought reached thirty-one years. This notorious streak finally ended with the 2021 season, which saw the Bengals reach their third Super Bowl, though they again lost the championship game.

History

The Bengals were the final team to join the AFL. By the time Cincinnati was granted a franchise on May 23, 1967, the merger of the AFL and NFL into a single league had already been agreed upon. The original team of investors was led by Paul Brown, a legendary figure in football in the state of Ohio. Brown had served as the head coach of the Massillon, Ohio, high school program from 1932 to 1940, and for Ohio State University from 1941 to 1943. In 1946, Brown helped found a professional football team in Cleveland that was named in his honor. The Browns would go on to become one of the Bengals fiercest rivals after both teams later joined the NFL.

Cincinnati was an appealing choice for an AFL franchise given Ohio’s large population and the team’s potential to draw from southern Ohio and northern Kentucky. The team’s nickname was chosen to honor a former Cincinnati team with the same name that existed between 1937 and 1942. Brown chose to lead a team of Cincinnati investors in the Bengals partly due to a desire to reenter professional football after being fired by the Browns in 1963. Brown and the Brown’s owner, Art Modell, had a tense relationship that would help spur the early rivalry between the two Ohio franchises.

During the team’s two seasons in the AFL, Cincinnati played in Nippert Stadium, located on the campus of the University of Cincinnati. During these two seasons, the Bengals had a record of 7–20–1, which reflected the growing pains of being a new franchise. As part of its contract with the Reds and Bengals, the city had agreed to the construction of a new multipurpose arena that could host both teams. Riverfront Stadium hosted the Bengals from 1970 to 1999 before the team’s move to Paul Brown Stadium in 2000. In 2022, Paul Brown Stadium was renamed Paycor Stadium as part of an expanded partnership between the franchise and the Cincinnati-based human capital management firm.

When the AFL and NFL finally joined together as a single league in 1970, the Bengals were placed in the AFC Central division alongside the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Houston Oilers (later the Tennessee Titans), and the Cleveland Browns. A series of team moves over the next three decades—including that of the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore, where they became the Ravens—eventually necessitated a reorganization of the NFL in 2002. Cincinnati was placed in the new AFC North with the Baltimore Ravens, the Steelers, and a newly reorganized Browns team in Cleveland.

In an unusual arrangement, Brown served as both a team owner as well as its coach during the Bengals’ first eight years of existence. Its first season in the NFL in 1970 was a tremendous success and the team won the AFC Central title, though they lost to the Baltimore Colts in the playoffs. Brown and his assistant coach Bill Walsh—the future coach of the San Francisco 49ers—were credited with helping to create the West Coast Offense during their time in Cincinnati. This form of play places greater emphasis on passing than running, and later became one of the principal forms of play in the NFL. Though Brown pushed the Bengals into the playoffs three times during his eight-year tenure as coach, he was unable to move them past the first round. After forty-five years of coaching, Brown retired in 1975 and named himself general manager. Brown controversially selected Bill “Tiger” Johnson instead of the popular Walsh to replace him as coach. Walsh would later discover that Brown had blocked his attempts to gain a head coaching position elsewhere, which would provide him with strong motivation in the two Bengals–49ers Super Bowl matchups.

Johnson went a respectable 18–10 in his first two seasons, but was fired by an impatient Brown after starting the 1978 season with five straight losses. He was replaced by Homer Rice, who only lasted two seasons as head coach, going 8-19. His successor was Forrest Gregg, who led the team to two highly successful seasons in 1981 and 1982. The Bengals went 19–6 and reached Super Bowl XVI in January 1982, only to lose a competitive game to the 49ers, 26–21. However, these seasons were bookended by a pair of losing 6–10 and 7–9 seasons in 1980 and 1983. In 1983, Gregg was allowed out of his contract to take over as coach for the Green Bay Packers. He was replaced by Sam Wyche, a former Bengals quarterback.

Though Wyche’s career record with the Bengals was only 61–57, he headed two successful seasons in 1988 and 1990. After going 4–11 in 1987, Wyche engineered a turnaround season in 1988, coaching the team to a 12–4 regular season and a second appearance in the Super Bowl against Walsh’s 49ers. The 49ers ultimately won the rematch when they scored a touchdown with thirty-four seconds left in the fourth quarter, giving them a 20–16 victory. The death of Paul Brown in August of 1991 foreshadowed a dark period for the Bengals. A 41–14 win over the Houston Oilers in January of 1991 would prove to be the last glimmer of the Paul Brown era, leading to two decades of frustration for fans, a period during which the team was often nicknamed “the Bungles.”

The remainder of the 1990s were largely futile, with the team’s 52–108 regular season record and accompanying .325-win percentage among the worst for any professional sports franchises in the United States over this period. In 1991, Paul Brown’s son Mike assumed leadership of the team upon his father’s death. Under his oversight, the Bengals campaigned heavily for a new stadium and threatened to leave the city. Cincinnati eventually agreed to a one-half percent sales tax in Cincinnati’s Hamilton County to fund the stadium, which opened in 1998. The Bengals were later sued in 2007 by Hamilton County for falsifying data to give the perception that the team was losing money.

The hiring of Marvin Lewis in 2003 marked a shift in fortunes. Under Lewis, the team finished first or second in the AFC North eight times between 2003 and 2018, highlighted by a 12–4 record in 2015. Despite their regular season success, the team failed to win a playoff game during that stretch, continuing the streak going back to 1990. Following the 2018 season, Lewis was relieved of duties and replaced by Zac Taylor, who at thirty-five was one of the youngest coaches in the NFL at the time of his hiring.

In Taylor's first season as head coach, 2019, the Bengals finished with a dismal 2–14 record. However, this gave the team the first overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, with which they selected highly touted quarterback Joe Burrow. An injury hampered Burrow's rookie season, but in 2021 he helped the Bengals go 10–7, enough to win the AFC North and secure a postseason berth. The team then ended its playoff drought with a victory over the Las Vegas Raiders, and went on to beat the Tennessee Titans and the Kansas City Chiefs to win the AFC Championship. In Super Bowl LVI the Bengals dueled the favored Los Angles Rams in a close game, but ultimately lost 23–20. Taylor led the team to win the AFC North once more in 2022. After two postseason wins, the team lost the AFC Championship to Kansas City. In 2023, Taylor's fifth season as head coach, the team ranked last in the AFC North, with a regular season record of 9–8.

Notable Players

The first player who spent their entire career with the Bengals to make the Pro Football Hall of Fame was Anthony Muñoz, considered one of the best offensive linemen in NFL history. Muñoz was a Bengal from 1980 to 1992. He started 183 of 185 games for Bengals during his thirteen seasons with the team and was named to eleven consecutive Pro Bowls. In 2023, cornerback Ken Riley became the second player to spend their whole career with the franchise to become a Hall of Famer. Riley, who died in 2020, played fifteen seasons from 1969 to 1983, during which he set a team record of sixty-five career interceptions. Wide receivers Charlie Joiner (1972–1975) and Terrell Owens (2010) also played for the Bengals and were named to the Hall of Fame, but played the majority of their careers with other teams.

Much of the Bengals’ success has been due to quarterback play. Perhaps the most famous Bengals quarterback was the charismatic Norman “Boomer” Esiason (1984–1992, 1997), who led the team during its heights in the late 1980s. He won the NFL Most Valuable player (MVP) award in 1988 and his 27,149 passing yards ranks second in Bengals’ history. The team was led by quarterback Ken Anderson during its first Super Bowl appearance in 1982. Anderson played with Cincinnati from 1971 to 1985 and won the NFL MVP for the 1981 season. The Bengals selected quarterback Carson Palmer first overall in the 2003 NFL Draft; he helped the team return to the playoffs after a fifteen-year drought and earned two Pro Bowl selections before being traded away after the 2010 season. Palmer was succeeded by Andy Dalton, who helped the Bengals reach the playoffs every season from 2011 to 2015 and set several franchise passing records. However, Dalton never found postseason success with the team and was released in 2020. The Bengals had another first-overall draft pick in 2020, and selected highly touted quarterback Joe Burrow, who in his second season led the team to its first playoff win since 1990 and an appearance in Super Bowl LVI.

Another position of strength for the Bengals has been the wide receiver position. Such players as Isaac Curtis (1973–1984), Cris Collinsworth (1981–1988), Carl Pickens (1992–1999), T. J. Houshmandzadeh (2001–2008), Chad Johnson (2001–2010), and A. J. Green (2011–20) combined for numerous Pro Bowl seasons between them. Ja'Marr Chase won the 2021 NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year Award after setting multiple NFL rookie and Bengals franchise receiving records.

Bibliography

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“Cincinnati Bengals Franchise Encyclopedia.” Pro Football Reference, 2019, www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/cin/. Accessed 25 July 2019.

"History: Paycor Stadium." Bengals, www.bengals.com/stadium/history. Accessed 29 Mar. 2024.

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Vera, Amir. "Rams Beat Bengals to Win Super Bowl LVI." CNN, 14 Feb. 2022, www.cnn.com/2022/02/13/us/rams-vs-bengals-super-bowl-lvi/index.html. Accessed 14 Feb. 2022.

Watkins, Steve, and Dick Maloney. Classic Bengals: The 50 Greatest Games in Cincinnati Bengals History. Kent State UP, 2018.