Week nine in the NFL proved to be disappointing for many of the students at the University this Sunday, for their beloved Brownies lost another heartbreaker to the hated Pittsburgh Steelers.
Being from Cincinnati, I obviously was not devastated with the 23-20 outcome of the game. No, being a diehard Bengals fan I should have been on cloud nine.
The 0-7 Bengals rolled over the Houston Texans in a 38-3 win, which, not to mention, was foreshadowed by Bengals coach Dick LeBeau earlier in the week. I have to admit, I was excited with the Bengals win and the Browns loss, but there was a big part of me that was highly disappointed.
Being referred to as the “Bungels” by many of the prestigious sports reporters and analysts was great. Sure we might have been the laughing stock of the league, and still are, but this week’s win didn’t do anything for the Bengals. As a matter of fact, last Sunday’s win over the Texans did less for the Bengals than a loss would have.
The Bengals are still the laughing stock of the league, but because of the Texans we lost our place in history. Being the one team who could have gone an entire season without a single win would have put the Bengals in the history books. The Bengals would no longer be a typically bad team; they would have been the worst team in the history of the National Football League. Coach Dick LeBeau and owner Mike Brown would have went down as being the head of the worst team ever. Now the Bengals are just another bad team, just as last year’s 1-15 Carolina Panthers were, and won’t be remembered for anything.
With countless losing seasons in the past decade and a couple 0-6 starts the Bengals finally had a chance to make a name for themselves this year. They were getting more publicity in the past two weeks than they have since the Ickey Shuffle and Boomer Esiason led them to the Super Bowl in 1988.
Every newspaper, big and small, publicly scrutinized the Bengals. They were getting more air time than any of the teams with one or two wins on their record, and people other than Cincinnatians had a reason to watch the Bengals on Sunday, to see if they could pull out another loss.
After the Bengals first win football fans don’t get to listen to bone head analysts and reporters talk about the Miami Hurricanes, who barely got by Rutgers, being able to beat the Bengals. No, now all we get to hear or see from the Bengals is their score run across the bottom line during the Brown’s games.
The Bengals owner Mike Brown had to be feeling the NFL breathing down his neck this season when his team showed no signs of life in the first half of the season. However, with a few wins on his record this season, nothing will have to change. A winless record would have called for a total reconstruction of the coaches and personnel. Not to mention that it could have cost the Bengals their franchise running back, Corey Dillon, who threatened to leave the team if they didn’t make an effort to put a winning team on the field.
A winless season would not only be good for sportscasters and radio personalities across the nation but it would have been the best thing for the Bengals. “Change” — a word which doesn’t seem to be in Mike Brown’s vocabulary would have had to occur.
Dillon was personally pushing the issue, but with a winless season down the tubes and with a few more lucky wins lurking nothing will have to change. The Bengals will continue to be a sub-par team and ownership will be off the hook, once again.
Yeah, things could have changed for the Bengals. They could have been remembered for something. Thanks to the Texans, however, they won’t. Thanks Houston for ruining a perfectly bad season for this years Bengals, and helping us remember why the Oilers left Texas.
