Rule the Jungle

[*rfaulk34*]

(07-20-2021, 12:13 AM)Whatever Wrote: You may be right, and I was a kid in the '80's, but it seems odd when you look at it from a historical perspective.  The '80's were the Bengals golden age, but they only had 4 winning seasons and 3 playoff berths during the decade and one of those was during the '82 strike year.  They broke a string of 3 straight losing seasons with the '81 AFC Championship team, went one and done in the strike year, then were mediocre to bad until '88.  

I'm apparently odd because when I go to a sporting event, I go to be entertained by watching the game.  Stuff like the playoff win drought doesn't really enter my mind.  Similarly, the whole "stadium experience" stuff doesn't really bug me, either, as long as the seats are reasonably comfortable and the food and drinks aren't ridiculously overpriced.  But apparently that stuff really does matter to some folks, which is why I assume I'm in the vast minority.  

In '81 they went to the SB. That year was kind of like '05 where they had some really lean years leading up to it and there wasn't really a bad taste of consecutive playoff defeats. 

'82 was another winning season, record-setting for K Anderson and they made the playoffs again. 
'83 was average.
'84 was a new, thought-to-be innovative coach and a new hotshot, brash young gunslinger QB. 
'85 was up and down with the "rebuild" but there were a lot of flashes of what was to come.
'86 they started off strong and finished 10-6 and it wasn't until the last monday night game of the season that they were knocked out of the playoffs.
'87 was the strike and a disaster
'88 super bowl again 
'89 was another year of fighting for the playoffs late to just miss it. 

The '80s were a lot more promising than how you may remember it, or see it from a historical standpoint. Other than '87 they were no worse than flirting around the .500 mark and they were contending or in the playoffs 5 of the 10 years. 

EDIT: i kind of dismissed '80 (lumped it in with the '70s) since if was the start of the turnaround when they hired Gregg.