that I don't give a shit about any other story in the NFL..

For as long as I can remember I've gone into the season "hoping" the Bengals win, but with tempered expectations. Not believing the Bengals were going to win it all I looked for other stories to "care" about.

For instance today on Sirius they stated they'd like to see Matt Ryan do well in Indy and I thought I don't care. In the past I would have had an opinion on that.

Folks are talking about how great Buffalo is and how much it would mean to "Bill's Mafia". Usually I'd think: I'd be nice to see a fanbase from a struggling franchise excel, but not this year...Damn the Bills and their backwoods fans.

This year I care about 1 thing...The Bengals getting back to the Super Bowl and closing the deal this year

I'm finding it's having the opposite effect on me personally. I don't find the NFL as depressing to follow now that my team is actually good. That said, I'm with you on nothing being even 1/100th as interesting as the team we have this year. This could be one for the history books in a big way.

I generally don't care much about other storylines, but I have to say I'm a bit perplexed by the dismissal of the Bengals by the "experts". They have young exciting players and made it to the friggin SB in spite of one glaring weakness. That weakness was obviously addressed.

They beat the class of the AFC, they went toe to toe with the class of the NFC (Packers, 49ers, Rams) and could have won any of those games if just one thing goes right. They blew out their biggest rivals 4 times. Is it the losses to the Browns, Bears and the Jets? I do admit those were fairly perplexing. I'm not mad about it, but I just figured everyone would be hopping on the bandwagon. I should think the Bengals would be one of the biggest stories of the season, but they seem more like an afterthought.

Oh well, more reason to say the wagon is full after more success this season.

I really enjoy the fantasy football league's I'm in so I always get excited to see what rookies or players in new places are doing. I also enjoy seeing what teams are up and down on offense/defense again for fantasy purposes and maybe once betting becomes more prevalent that will increase even more.

Good or bad the Bengals are always my #1 focus during the season. But in years past I'll pay attention to the league and have a team I like if we don't make the playoffs to root for to win it all. I'm hoping we will once again be in the playoffs so that won't be a concern.

(09-06-2022, 05:38 PM)wcu Wrote: I generally don't care much about other storylines, but I have to say I'm a bit perplexed by the dismissal of the Bengals by the "experts".  They have young exciting players and made it to the friggin SB in spite of one glaring weakness.  That weakness was obviously addressed.

They beat the class of the AFC, they went toe to toe with the class of the NFC (Packers, 49ers, Rams) and could have won any of those games if just one thing goes right.  They blew out their biggest rivals 4 times.  Is it the losses to the Browns, Bears and the Jets?  I do admit those were fairly perplexing.  I'm not mad about it, but I just figured everyone would be hopping on the bandwagon.  I should think the Bengals would be one of the biggest stories of the season, but they seem more like an afterthought.

Oh well, more reason to say the wagon is full after more success this season.

This is perplexing to me as well. On the one hand I get not putting the Bengals in the same class with some of the truly elite of the NFL just yet. But your right any of those top teams we played we either beat last year or narrowly lost. All of the preseason analysis is just based off trends and past history and that only goes so far. 

As I've looked at the schedule more I really think our first half of the season is very winnable. So if we get to the bye at something like 8-1 or dare I say 9-0 it will be really interesting to see what the sports talking heads are saying. 

It's even easing the pain of my Cardinals stinking it up at Syracuse.

(09-06-2022, 05:30 PM)treee Wrote: I'm finding it's having the opposite effect on me personally. I don't find the NFL as depressing to follow now that my team is actually good. That said, I'm with you on nothing being even 1/100th as interesting as the team we have this year. This could be one for the history books in a big way.

Bingo.  Same for me.  For me, it's been enjoyable taking in news from around the league knowing my team, relatively speaking, is locked and loaded.

By the way this whole "Bills are the next dynasty in the making" is getting a bit old.  I get it, they're stacked, but the persistent slob job they're getting is a little much.

(09-06-2022, 05:19 PM)bfine32 Wrote: that I don't give a shit about any other story in the NFL..

For as long as I can remember I've gone into the season "hoping" the Bengals win, but with tempered expectations. Not believing the Bengals were going to win it all I looked for other stories to "care" about.

For instance today on Sirius they stated they'd like to see Matt Ryan do well in Indy and I thought I don't care. In the past I would have had an opinion on that.

Folks are talking about how great Buffalo is and how much it would mean to "Bill's Mafia". Usually I'd think: I'd be nice to see a fanbase from a struggling franchise excel, but not this year...Damn the Bills and their backwoods fans.

This year I care about 1 thing...The Bengals getting back to the Super Bowl and closing the deal this year

Should've been like this from the beginning. This way, you only keep tabs of what's important. Who needs clutter, right,?

I'd advise adding more Rich Eisen in your repertoire. He still has us as the cream of the crop until otherwise challenged and he himself said we're disrespected as a franchise.

(09-06-2022, 06:16 PM)Go Cards Wrote: It's even easing the pain of my Cardinals stinking it up at Syracuse.

Sorry the Cards lost (no I'm not). As a 20th ranked UK Wildcats fan I'm happy with this weekend's results.

But we're both Who Dey fans. That evens it all out. Good luck to the Cards. Except on Nov 26th. 

(09-06-2022, 05:19 PM)bfine32 Wrote: that I don't give a shit about any other story in the NFL..

For as long as I can remember I've gone into the season "hoping" the Bengals win, but with tempered expectations. Not believing the Bengals were going to win it all I looked for other stories to "care" about.

For instance today on Sirius they stated they'd like to see Matt Ryan do well in Indy and I thought I don't care. In the past I would have had an opinion on that.

Folks are talking about how great Buffalo is and how much it would mean to "Bill's Mafia". Usually I'd think: I'd be nice to see a fanbase from a struggling franchise excel, but not this year...Damn the Bills and their backwoods fans.

This year I care about 1 thing...The Bengals getting back to the Super Bowl and closing the deal this year

Super Bowl replay was on and caught some of it. The national media doesn’t realize we lead it half way through the 4th

I can relate to this, as well.  Normally I'm pretty fired up about pre-season drama and off-season stuff and new QB locations and competitions and stuff going on around the Bengals.  Right now the rest of the NFL is pretty meh because I expect the Bengals to win every damn game and I'm going to be flat out annoyed if they don't.

Oddly enough, this is basically the mindset I've spent decades finding loathsome in bratty entitled Steelers fans...that whole "I'm not going to worry until the playoffs" mindset.  Jinx this and that, but as long as Burrow is alive I sort of have that gleefully self-hating "I'm just wondering who we're going to play in the AFC Championship game" mentality now.  Interesting.

If you have told me last year that Burrow was going to be so good that I'd go into 2022 having a hard time picture Zac Taylor ever getting fired I'd have said "I hope you're right, but that sounds pretty insane."

I enjoy all NFL news myself. Yes, the Bengals are my main focus. But, I like other stories about other teams. Give me any football game on
TV and I'm happy.

Hell yeah!!

(09-06-2022, 07:56 PM)Soonerpeace Wrote:  The national media doesn’t realize we lead it half way through the 4th

Yeah, right.  The national media, whose job it is to cover football, have no idea what happened in that game they call THE SUPER BOWL.


Did you ever stop to think that the fact our defense choked away so many 4th quarter leads is one reason the national media does not have a lot of faith in them?

(09-06-2022, 07:56 PM)Soonerpeace Wrote: Super Bowl replay was on and caught some of it. The national media doesn’t realize we lead it half way through the 4th

It's like that in all our Super Bowls..

(09-06-2022, 06:26 PM)JumboTron Wrote: Bingo.  Same for me.  For me, it's been enjoyable taking in news from around the league knowing my team, relatively speaking, is locked and loaded.

By the way this whole "Bills are the next dynasty in the making" is getting a bit old.  I get it, they're stacked, but the persistent slob job they're getting is a little much.

Yes, it is. I get that it was a great game between Buffalo and KC last year that all the talking heads are still slobbering over, but the Bills lost and the Bengals beat KC twice. I'll be rooting for LA to lay the first loss on Buffalo come Thursday night. 

(09-06-2022, 11:02 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Yeah, right.  The national media, whose job it is to cover football, have no idea what happened in that game they call THE SUPER BOWL.


Did you ever stop to think that the fact our defense choked away so many 4th quarter leads is one reason the national media does not have a lot of faith in them?

What games did the defense lose? In the NFL especially in the fourth quarter close games go back and forth. Ask the Bills and their number one rated defense. Do you actually watch games?

(09-06-2022, 05:19 PM)bfine32 Wrote: that I don't give a shit about any other story in the NFL..

For as long as I can remember I've gone into the season "hoping" the Bengals win, but with tempered expectations. Not believing the Bengals were going to win it all I looked for other stories to "care" about.

For instance today on Sirius they stated they'd like to see Matt Ryan do well in Indy and I thought I don't care. In the past I would have had an opinion on that.

Folks are talking about how great Buffalo is and how much it would mean to "Bill's Mafia". Usually I'd think: I'd be nice to see a fanbase from a struggling franchise excel, but not this year...Damn the Bills and their backwoods fans.

This year I care about 1 thing...The Bengals getting back to the Super Bowl and closing the deal this year

ahh you must be getting old like me... 

(09-06-2022, 05:19 PM)bfine32 Wrote: that I don't give a shit about any other story in the NFL..

For as long as I can remember I've gone into the season "hoping" the Bengals win, but with tempered expectations. Not believing the Bengals were going to win it all I looked for other stories to "care" about.

For instance today on Sirius they stated they'd like to see Matt Ryan do well in Indy and I thought I don't care. In the past I would have had an opinion on that.

Folks are talking about how great Buffalo is and how much it would mean to "Bill's Mafia". Usually I'd think: I'd be nice to see a fanbase from a struggling franchise excel, but not this year...Damn the Bills and their backwoods fans.

This year I care about 1 thing...The Bengals getting back to the Super Bowl and closing the deal this year

Yeah, it is different this year. Same, only 1 thing we all seem to care about and that is a Lombardi trophy this season.