(05-23-2025, 01:11 PM)jason Wrote: [ -> ]I think the Brown family cares about winning. They just care about winning on their terms. The Reds are totally content to take your money and farm players for New York, Boston, LA, and the teams that can afford to compete.
(05-23-2025, 08:36 AM)jason Wrote: [ -> ]I like ugly uniforms and antiquated ownership and management structures...
I actually was a Los Angeles Raiders fan (Jim Plunkett, Marcus Allen, Lester Hayes era) as a kid, but they weren't as easy to see on TV in the Dayton area as the Bengals. My dad was a Bengals fan and took me to at least one or two games a year at Riverfront. That environment was insane (before the NFL became the bougie corporate environment it is now) for a small child. By the time the 88 super bowl season rolled around I really started following the team, and I'd hear all the Gary Burbank shit on 700. I started drifting to the local team. I lost interest when Wyche and the boys all left. I regained it in college just to be a heel for my college roommates who were all Browns fans... Then the Browns moved and the Bengals were on every week in Columbus. They sucked, but Blake and Pickens were exciting. Rooting for a loser became my passion. Then it started to "pay off" with Carson and Chad... Decades later; here we are.
You have to be the smartest person in Morton with a college degree!
(05-20-2025, 04:57 PM)rfaulk34 Wrote: [ -> ]Ok. I need to take a break from the bashing and do something a little different. Some of you may start thinking that i don't actually like the team. I'm sure we've done this before, but i'd like to know why and when you became a Bengals fan.
I've told this story before but it's been a while and i'm sure we have new people over the last couple years. So here's littly Ricky's story...
Back in 1978 i was 12 years old and me and my friends were just getting into sports seriously. Playing around the neighborhood and watching pro and college sports on TV. At the time, my Uncle worked at Barleycorn's downtown and it just so happened that Bengals players would hang out there on Friday nights before home games. My dad had told me this and on this particular Friday, i asked him to bring me some autographs to show off to my friends. So, the next morning i wake up, eat some cereal and sit down to watch Saturday morning cartoons. That's what we did back in the day. Anyway, i'm sitting there and i think, "hmm, that was a pretty cool dream last night...wait, was it a dream?". So i get up and go back in my room and there on top of the dresser was an NFL football and a signed pic of Gary Burley. Not only that, my dad said i had 2 tickets to the upcoming home game against the Falcons.
Now, any of you that know the history of the Bengals, know they weren't very good in the late 70s. At that particular time, the Bengals were 1-12 with their only win coming against Houston earlier in the season. The football that was sitting on top of my dresser just happened to be a game ball that Gary Burley had received for getting 4 sacks in Houston the week before, in a loss (they got game balls even in losses back then), and he just kept it in his trunk.
So, i go to the game with my Uncle, the one that worked at Barleycorn's and low and behold, the Bengals win their 2nd game of the year 37-7 and go on an OG DCB. The Falcons had been fighting for a playoff spot at the time at 8-5. After the game, me and another kid got to ride in Burley's cadillac on the way to get something to eat with my Uncle and a couple other players (who i don't recall right now).
I've been hooked ever since. NFL football is my #1 sport to watch, bar none. I love college basketball too but not nearly as much as NFL football and as fate would have it...i bleed orange and black, despite my distaste for who owns and runs the organization.
For those interested, here is that game, with little Ricky sitting in some end zone seats, taking in all the action.
I was able to call into the Lance McCallister show some time back when he had Burley as a guest and related this story to him.
What's your story?
Thanks for the video! I wish it was 1978 again!
I see the officiating hasn't changed much, still pretty bad!
Seeing some of the old commercials and products was kind of cool
Cheerleaders with big breast instead of today's tiny ones.
Thanks again for the walk down memory lane.
Well I became a fan when several OU Sooner players became players as well as my hometown Zac Taylor became coach. Knowing a few or people very close to them piqued my interest.
(05-23-2025, 11:23 AM)Clark W Griswold Wrote: [ -> ]Born and raised and still live in Southern California but became a fan because: I played OT as a kid and the Bengals had the best one, loved the uniforms/helmets and then was a Boomer fan.
Suffered through many bad years and got asked why are you a Bengals fan about a thousand times. People also would tell me that they had never met a Bengals fan before.
Truth is I have never even been to Ohio but that all changes in Sept. I have tix to the Bengals home opener (also going to the Buckeyes game on Sat). This is the ultimate bucket list item for me. I saw them play a couple of times years ago vs Chargers in San Diego but going to a Bengals game in Cincy is something I have wanted to do for decades.
Also would love to hear any must-dos in Cincinnati from those who live there.
(Thanks to BengalsLUFC for sharing some things even though he is far from a local)
If you can, stick around for a week and catch Oktoberfest Zinzinnati Sept 18 - 21. America’s largest. Don’t live there but have been there for the chicken dance, lol. Good times.?
Because my dad was from Bangladesh and when he moved to USA to get his PhD he found the bengal tiger as a mascot of an NFL team while he was in Texas A&M. So I started watching after Boomer went and lost the superbowl.
(05-23-2025, 11:23 AM)Clark W Griswold Wrote: [ -> ]Born and raised and still live in Southern California but became a fan because: I played OT as a kid and the Bengals had the best one, loved the uniforms/helmets and then was a Boomer fan.
Suffered through many bad years and got asked why are you a Bengals fan about a thousand times. People also would tell me that they had never met a Bengals fan before.
Truth is I have never even been to Ohio but that all changes in Sept. I have tix to the Bengals home opener (also going to the Buckeyes game on Sat). This is the ultimate bucket list item for me. I saw them play a couple of times years ago vs Chargers in San Diego but going to a Bengals game in Cincy is something I have wanted to do for decades.
Also would love to hear any must-dos in Cincinnati from those who live there.
(Thanks to BengalsLUFC for sharing some things even though he is far from a local)
Buckeye games are great to go to. Top notch college football atmosphere, way better than NFL games imo, so should be a blast of a weekend for you.
I don't have many must-dos tbh. If anything the Hofbräuhaus across the river in Newport is always popular for out of town folks. It was the 3rd one built I think after the original in Munich Germany, now there are tons of them across country. ALso try a Cincy chili place like Skyline if you haven't had Cincy chili before, maybe just a cheese coney just to say you had one, a when in Rome thing.
(05-26-2025, 08:12 AM)reuben.ahmed Wrote: [ -> ]Because my dad was from Bangladesh and when he moved to USA to get his PhD he found the bengal tiger as a mascot of an NFL team while he was in Texas A&M. So I started watching after Boomer went and lost the superbowl.
(05-22-2025, 01:58 PM)Truck_1_0_1_ Wrote: [ -> ]I've mentioned mine in the past: the first part here may seem redundant, but there's a reason I bring it up lol.
When I was three (I started remembering things once I turned three: before then, I have 0 memory of anything), I played Golden Axe on the Sega Genesis for the first time and immediately became hooked on video games (it was the first time I played a videogame). I didn't know what I was doing, but I was having a blast lol. A few months later, football season begins and my dad being a massive Cowboys fan, they were always on Fox (the theme came out 2 years later and that has been embedded in my brain for most of my life lol) and we watched them every week, thus my first introduction to the sport was via the Cowboys. For some reason though, Boomer Esiason is the first player I ever remember hearing the name of, I don't know why. As the year wore on, names like Leon Lett and Nate Newton (probably due to alliteration) became stuck in my head and when they won the SB, it was Cowboys mania in our house.
I'm nearing 4 years old after the SB and I start playing the original, console version of John Madden football on the Genesis at my uncle's, but there were only 16 teams in the game (or 18 or whatever) and the Cowboys were not one of them! (when the game came out, they went 1-15, so my guess is they were left off for that reason) Bummed not being able to play as them, since I was a big cat lover, my uncle suggested to pick the Bengals, as they were tigers. So I play with them, lose every game because I don't know how to play the game lol. but have enough fun. Fast forward a few more months and now at 4, I ask my dad about the Bengals and he tells me that Boomer used to be their QB (he was with the Jets at this point) and that instantly shot them to be above the Cowboys lol. The season starts and we only see highlights and newspaper box scores (I learned to read all boxes at a young age ), but the first Bengals player I learn of is John Copeland (hence why he is my second favourite Bengals DL ever) and then I embraced every opportunity I had (which were copiously few) to see or read about the team.
Fast forward 5 years to 1998 and I inherit my uncle's Genesis. As the console was discontinued, games were being heavily discounted at video rental shops and the first game we got (for $5.00) was Madden 98. ROSTERS. TRADES. ALL THE TEAMS. I was in heaven and it was at that point that I was no longer just a fan of the team, but became obsessed lol. The dawn of the internet made me even more obsessed and once I joined the mothership in April of '09 (right before the draft), I made it a point of becoming as invested as I could in the team going forward.
And here we are :)
You hit on a couple of 90s memories I have.
1) Box scores. I'd look for USA Today papers just for box scores.
2) Late 90s Madden - Being able to create players and update the rosters. I'd spend a lot of time doing that.
I'd always create me as a player usually as a wr. When it let me, I'd play safety too.
(05-26-2025, 08:12 AM)reuben.ahmed Wrote: [ -> ]Because my dad was from Bangladesh and when he moved to USA to get his PhD he found the bengal tiger as a mascot of an NFL team while he was in Texas A&M. So I started watching after Boomer went and lost the superbowl.
(05-26-2025, 09:48 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: [ -> ]You hit on a couple of 90s memories I have.
1) Box scores. I'd look for USA Today papers just for box scores.
2) Late 90s Madden - Being able to create players and update the rosters. I'd spend a lot of time doing that.
I'd always create me as a player usually as a wr. When it let me, I'd play safety too.
1. When we would be up at a cottage for a week (we did it once or twice every year in my youth), I would get a paper down the road in a box every day and I would pore over all the MLB box scores, starting when I was like 5 years old lol, so I would always look for NFL boxes on Mondays.
2. I never played '99, but I know you can make guys go two ways in 2000. When I first played that game and sucked at it, I would always put Kyle Richardson at QB for the Ravens
(05-27-2025, 12:26 PM)Truck_1_0_1_ Wrote: [ -> ]1. When we would be up at a cottage for a week (we did it once or twice every year in my youth), I would get a paper down the road in a box every day and I would pore over all the MLB box scores, starting when I was like 5 years old lol, so I would always look for NFL boxes on Mondays.
2. I never played '99, but I know you can make guys go two ways in 2000. When I first played that game and sucked at it, I would always put Kyle Richardson at QB for the Ravens
I can't remember the last time I saw a sports page in a paper now. I do look at box scores a lot still.
Some years of Madden were so cool. Some they seemed to slow down the game speed. Some were really fast. In the 90's that was interesting year to year. I tended to not like the slow ones.
I remember when they'd keep full season stats of players I loved that. I'd see if I could get a lot of sacks from 1 player. Like Justin Smith.
Drafts were fun and strange at the same time. Was really hard to scout players and know what you'd get.
