What moment did you remove any doubt how bonkers you were about the Bengals?
For me, I was just divorced and ditched Ohio for Montana. I was traveling from Montana to Idaho with a good buddy and two women. It was January 22nd, 1989. I made clear I would not do the trip if we didn't stop to watch the Super Bowl. The two ladies were pissed, but we stopped in the Challis, Idaho bowling alley in a driving snowstorm to watch the Bengals narrowly lose to the 49ers. There was no other customer in the building, but I made up for it by drinking my fair share of beers. The drive after that game was treacherous to say the least, but I never regretted my decision, only the outcome of the game.
On a side note, I bumped into Dick Enberg in Sun Valley the following weekend and thanked him for doing an unbiased call of the game. He said it was the best Super Bowl he'd ever watched. I informed I was a Bengals fan since their inception. He said, "well, that's tough for you, but you gotta admit that was a great game!" I've despised the 49ers ever since.
Another side note: I was in Missoula for the Forester's Ball before our road trip. That ball used to be a NUTS party on the University of Montana campus. (Playboy magazine once rated it as THE best college party in the country.) To get a free beer, you had to kiss the bartender. There were some smokin' hot college ladies behind the bar, and their lines were unsurprisingly quite long. They used to say more than half the people would leave with someone other than they showed up with. Women also could pick some pretty ripped college guys to get their beers. I saw a few fights break out over the length of the kisses. There was also a "stud barn" where people could go have fun in a three-walled room, with a mattress on the floor. I haven't been in years, but I've heard it's pretty lame now, with no alcohol served and no more stud barns. Those were some crazy days.
(01-14-2022, 03:53 PM)MTBengalsFan Wrote: What moment did you remove any doubt how bonkers you were about the Bengals?
For me, I was just divorced and ditched Ohio for Montana. I was traveling from Montana to Idaho with a good buddy and two women. It was January 22nd, 1989. I made clear I would not do the trip if we didn't stop to watch the Super Bowl. The two ladies were pissed, but we stopped in the Challis, Idaho bowling alley in a driving snowstorm to watch the Bengals narrowly lose to the 49ers. There was no other customer in the building, but I made up for it by drinking my fair share of beers. The drive after that game was treacherous to say the least, but I never regretted my decision, only the outcome of the game.
If you add a kidnapping it sounds like the opening scenes from a Coen Brothers movie.
For me it would have been the first time I walked into PBS as a newly minted STH - August, 2000. We were playing the Bears in a pre-season game that was the first-ever event to be held at PBS. They were playing highlights from SBXXIII on the scoreboards, which struck me as strange given the outcome. Regardless, I knew I had arrived in my fandom that night, the 20+ years before were prologue.
I don't have a cool story to attach to my hardcore Bengals fan moment, but it was solidified during the Bills & Bengals AFC Championship game. The game's boxscore:
Ickey scored in the first quarter and again in the fourth. He had over 100 yards and 2 TDs. I recall a lot about the season prior to this game, but this game is my most vivid and earliest Bengals memory.
I was a kid, not yet a teenager, and know that Ickey Woods doing his shuffle made me loving being a Bengals fan. The team had so many cool players!
January 1989. Superbowl XXIII. I was 26 years old. I pissed my pants and cried like a baby, all because of the Bengals. I was so excited after Stanford Jennings kickoff return for a TD that I pissed myself (didn't matter, would have done it again for another TD).
Then Montana to Taylor with 34 seconds remaining all but ended my life(at least that's how it felt). Only time I had ever cried like that over a game. I have still never forgiven Lewis Billups for the dropped INT.
Any grown ass man that is completely sober and pisses himself and then cries like a baby over a ballgame is hopeless and definitely hardcore.
(01-14-2022, 03:53 PM)MTBengalsFan Wrote: What moment did you remove any doubt how bonkers you were about the Bengals?
My family would say it's when I was able to list the entire 53-person roster and give a brief scouting report of every draft pick the Bengals make including what college they went to, position, height, weight, etc.
Of which I believe started...around a decade ago?
Zac Taylor 2019-2020: 6 total wins
Zac Taylor 2021-2022: Double-digit wins each season, plus 5 postseason wins
Zac Taylor 2023: 9 wins despite losing Burrow half the season
Zac Taylor 2024: Started 1-4. If he can turn this into a playoff appearance, it will be impressive.
(01-14-2022, 04:48 PM)ochocincos Wrote: My family would say it's when I was able to list the entire 53-person roster and give a brief scouting report of every draft pick the Bengals make including what college they went to, position, height, weight, etc.
Of which I believe started...around a decade ago?
After reading your draft forums posts, this does not surprise me to read.
Jan. 8th 2006 I was overseas for the Steelers vs Bengals wild card game. I wore a Bengals T-Shirt under my ACUs. I was fined $200 because I refused to take it off.
I've been a fan since 1974 when Csonka, Kiick, and Warfield spurned Miami and jumped to the World Football League. I was so traumatized by their disloyalty that my 12 year old self decided to pick a new team. I loved Kenny Anderson so I chose the Bengals.
Fast forward to Superbowl XXIII and I was a front desk manager for a hotel in Cocoa Beach, Fl when 4 guys from Cincinnati stopped and spent the Saturday night before the game at my hotel on the way to Miami. No lie, no joke, I checked them into room 149 and one of them comes back to the desk within 5 or 10 minutes and tells me they must switch rooms or they're finding another hotel.
I watched that game by myself and had to run to store at halftime because i was so nervous that i drank all my beer midway through the 2nd quarter.
I knew we were done when they got the ball with 3 to go. It was like it was pre-ordained. I was literally sick for days, and didn't go back to work for a week.
I have NEVER been so confident in a Bengals team as I am in this one. I really believe they have what it takes to go all the way, and as long as the front office handles business the way they have the last few years, that we will be a perennial Super Bowl contender for the next decade.
Well, been a fan since that 89 Superbowl and I was 7 years old. Loved the striped helmets and my mom was a 49ers
fan. I got a Boomer Esiason helmet and jersey that next Christmas and then the 90's happened. I don't know of another
Bengals fan in my area.
I go to parties all the time pronouncing myself a Bengals fan to every Steeler fan around as that is the majority here.
They mostly just humor me, but thanks to this board I know more about football than any of them and even more about
their own stupid piss wearing team.
Would be nice to finally rub it in all their faces with some Playoff victories and a Super Bowl victory for once.
FFS man, ya kinda ruined it for the rest of us with that story! I'm pretty damn sure my story of how I came to like the Bengals as a kid in the early 80s ain't gonna hold a candle to that shit!
Ohio State won the title after the 2002 season. I was 15. I never cared about football previously, but that run kind of caught my attention and imagination as my family and classmates were going nuts over it. As it turned out, my interest in college football was pretty brief, and that’s because in 2003 it was replaced.
I’d always known through the ‘90s up to that point about the Bengals’ miserable reputation. They were a punchline, and I didn’t need to pay attention to football to understand that. But I was flipping channels one day and came upon Bengals/Browns in (I think) week 4 of the 2003 season. After the Buckeyes run of the previous year I decided it’d be cool to see the professional game.
It was a perfect storm that year. They started winning that day, and my fascination exploded as it continued through that awesome crescendo against the 9-0 Chiefs. By the start of the 2004 season I had immersed myself in the team and its lore, and I couldn’t believe how much I genuinely cared about their fate every Sunday. It was and remains the only thing I’ve ever known that can capture my passion so thoroughly. I’m not entire sure why.
But then cue the 2005 season with all its highs and lows, and I was entrapped forever. That never waned until a brief period of disillusionment between the Steelers playoff fiasco after 2015 and the hiring of Zac Taylor. Now I have the fever again and stronger than ever.
(01-14-2022, 03:53 PM)MTBengalsFan Wrote: What moment did you remove any doubt how bonkers you were about the Bengals?
For me, I was just divorced and ditched Ohio for Montana. I was traveling from Montana to Idaho with a good buddy and two women. It was January 22nd, 1989. I made clear I would not do the trip if we didn't stop to watch the Super Bowl. The two ladies were pissed, but we stopped in the Challis, Idaho bowling alley in a driving snowstorm to watch the Bengals narrowly lose to the 49ers. There was no other customer in the building, but I made up for it by drinking my fair share of beers. The drive after that game was treacherous to say the least, but I never regretted my decision, only the outcome of the game.
On a side note, I bumped into Dick Enberg in Sun Valley the following weekend and thanked him for doing an unbiased call of the game. He said it was the best Super Bowl he'd ever watched. I informed I was a Bengals fan since their inception. He said, "well, that's tough for you, but you gotta admit that was a great game!" I've despised the 49ers ever since.
Another side note: I was in Missoula for the Forester's Ball before our road trip. That ball used to be a NUTS party on the University of Montana campus. (Playboy magazine once rated it as THE best college party in the country.) To get a free beer, you had to kiss the bartender. There were some smokin' hot college ladies behind the bar, and their lines were unsurprisingly quite long. They used to say more than half the people would leave with someone other than they showed up with. Women also could pick some pretty ripped college guys to get their beers. I saw a few fights break out over the length of the kisses. There was also a "stud barn" where people could go have fun in a three-walled room, with a mattress on the floor. I haven't been in years, but I've heard it's pretty lame now, with no alcohol served and no more stud barns. Those were some crazy days.
Been a Bengals fan since day 1. But I have two questions for you .
1. Isn't it Ironic that you despise the 49ers led by Joe Montana and you live in Montana?
2. Do you know John Dutton?
(01-14-2022, 05:36 PM)Wyche Wrote: FFS man, ya kinda ruined it for the rest of us with that story! I'm pretty damn sure my story of how I came to like the Bengals as a kid in the early 80s ain't gonna hold a candle to that shit!
lol I had the same thought, "uhhh, I liked the Ickey shuffle..." That's all I got.
In the pre-internet days, I'd always walk my dog down the hill to the gas station just to pick up the Monday paper so I could keep a log of everyone's stats.
...and this is the pre-Marvin Lewis lost 90s era.
There were many points where I could've told you the name and basic info for every guy on the team, but I don't keep up like that anymore.
I will say that my brain is like a stats database though. If you name a random starter and year, I can tell you what the stats are without Google. Especially on the offensive side. From any time between 1988 to present.
The training, nutrition, medicine, fitness, playbooks and rules evolve. The athlete does not.
(01-14-2022, 05:54 PM)magikod Wrote: Right around 2002-2003 is when I starting getting interested.
I started playing FB in middle school, would watch Bengals games with my dad, etc.
Then the 2005 season was a turning point from just being a casual fan, to becoming almost addicted to them lol.
Only sport I follow religiously lol. Root for the Buckeyes as well, but I am way more of a Bengals fan.
-magikod
This is nearly my exact story. I started really getting into football around 2005 and Carson/Chad/T.J./Rudi really sucked me in. I remember in 2007, the Bengals lost to the Browns 51-45 in an insane shootout against Derek Anderson and Jamal Lewis. I was so upset I just went outside and sat in the grass. I was 14 that year. My fandom only became more and more deep from there. I will say, I am a bigger fan than I was in 2016 but my perspective has shifted. That WC game broke me as a fan. I was so, so crushed. So, I am a bigger fan but not as fanatical. I don't have as many emotional swings in games anymore.
I was always given shit for being a Bengals fan and known as the guy who was dumb enough to support them. I was in Cleveland for a Guns N’ Roses concert during a weekend where they played us there. My group all wore Bengals jerseys to the concert and were hassled, albeit playfully while there. After the concert tho, we went to a bar downtown and the staff ignored us … I called out to a bartender and said “can we get some service ?” She replied “Sorry , we’re Browns fans .” Lol. That’s one of my fav fandom moments , tho I have several others that I’ll spare you all from reading. I’m super excited tho as I know many of you are.
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![[Image: icky-shuffle.gif]](https://c.tenor.com/WvVWmlMWlf8AAAAC/icky-shuffle.gif)
![[Image: 1jKEzj4.png]](https://i.imgur.com/1jKEzj4.png)
