02-01-2023, 07:28 AM
No I don't think we were as bad pre-Burrow as people would make out, but there were a few stigma points used as a stick to beat us with.
- The 90s. About as laughable a decade as any NFL team could ever have. Takes some success to remove that stigma. We never really had that success until Burrow came in.
- The Playoff Drought. Any team that takes 3 decades to win a single playoff game isn't going to be respected. We managed to compound this even further, by make the playoffs in 6 straight years and going 0-6.
- If there's a way to lose a game, the Bengals will find it. The Wild Card game with the Steelers will have absolutely hammered home perceptions about us. Even something like the Palmer/Henry injury in our first playoff appearance in forever... people would just look at crap like that and wonder what kind of luck the Bengals will ever have. Bad luck teams = bad teams, in terms of perception.
Fortunately we seem to be moving past this now, but even just talking about the pre-Burrow Bengals, there were a few teams who also weren't very good. We were an absolute joke, and then Marvin Lewis came in and made us pretty competitive most years. He did it during a time the Steelers and Ravens were really good for a long period of time too. I think he deserves a bit more credit than he gets, though clearly he had limitations as well.
- The 90s. About as laughable a decade as any NFL team could ever have. Takes some success to remove that stigma. We never really had that success until Burrow came in.
- The Playoff Drought. Any team that takes 3 decades to win a single playoff game isn't going to be respected. We managed to compound this even further, by make the playoffs in 6 straight years and going 0-6.
- If there's a way to lose a game, the Bengals will find it. The Wild Card game with the Steelers will have absolutely hammered home perceptions about us. Even something like the Palmer/Henry injury in our first playoff appearance in forever... people would just look at crap like that and wonder what kind of luck the Bengals will ever have. Bad luck teams = bad teams, in terms of perception.
Fortunately we seem to be moving past this now, but even just talking about the pre-Burrow Bengals, there were a few teams who also weren't very good. We were an absolute joke, and then Marvin Lewis came in and made us pretty competitive most years. He did it during a time the Steelers and Ravens were really good for a long period of time too. I think he deserves a bit more credit than he gets, though clearly he had limitations as well.
