Were the pre-Joe Bengals as bad as most think?

[*bengalfan74*]

(01-31-2023, 09:57 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: The media seems to paint the Bengals as an abysmal franchise. Tbh, I don't think they down any other team quite like the Bengals. I'm under no delusion that the Bengals were one of the better teams by any stretch, but were we the worst? Or even bottom 5?

So why didn't the media try to talk Herbert, Allen, Lawrence or Mahomes out of signing with those teams? Why does it feel like the Bengals get dismissed more than any of these teams?

How is the Chiefs getting Reid and Mahomes any different than us getting Zac and Burrow? Neither franchise had a great history prior to getting them.

Good post Shake

I haven't read the entire thread, however. We didn't really get blasted near as much nationally back in the 70's and 80's. Of course we didn't have the internet and social media then either. IMHO the Bengals suck narrative got started with the arrival of the MB era. No shocker huh? Most of those 90's teams were just so very bad. The highlight tape of oh hell what QB was that? throwing the 5 yards backwards pass kinda summed up those years and it became so easy to pile on.

And Mike himself didn't help anything with his supreme stubbornness and lack of oh Charissma on camera. His monotone interviews with the excitement of a tree sloth just added fuel to the fire.

Then the ML era started and he along with Palmer and Chad (mostly Chad) brought some respect to the Bengals 04-06 time. But then it fairly quickly fell back into "well it's still the same old Bengals haha" Then the Palmer leaving thing.

At the beginning of the Dalton era we started to gain a bit of respect. But then the 1 and dones kinda just made it worse. "Oh look the Bengals made the playoffs again LOL, who's gonna knock em out in the first round again LOAO". 

I believe for several reasons we just became the NFL media whipping boy. And we're only now getting out of it,kinda. I still believe we have to win it all to truly get the national media to let up.