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Cincinnati Bengals

This article is about the current Cincinnati Bengals team. For the earlier unrelated team, see Cincinnati Bengals (1937–1941).

Cincinnati Bengals
Current season
Established May 23, 1967 (1967-05-23)[1]
First season: 1968
Play in and headquartered in Paycor Stadium
Cincinnati, Ohio[2]
Cincinnati Bengals logo
Cincinnati Bengals logo
Cincinnati Bengals wordmark
Cincinnati Bengals wordmark
LogoWordmark
League/conference affiliations

American Football League (1968–1969)

National Football League (1970–present)

Current uniform
Team colorsBlack, orange, white[3][4][5]
     
Fight songThe Bengals Growl
MascotBengal tiger (Who Dey)[6]
Personnel
Owner(s)Mike Brown
PresidentMike Brown
Head coachZac Taylor
Team history
  • Cincinnati Bengals (1968–present)
Championships
League championships (0)
Conference championships (3)
Division championships (11)
Playoff appearances (16)
Home fields

The Cincinnati Bengals are a professional American football team based in Cincinnati. The Bengals compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) North division. The club's home games are held in downtown Cincinnati at Paycor Stadium.

Former Cleveland Browns head coach Paul Brown began planning for the creation of the Bengals franchise in 1965, and Cincinnati's city council approved the construction of Riverfront Stadium in 1966. Finally, in 1967, the Bengals were founded when a group headed by Brown received franchise approval by the American Football League (AFL) on May 23, 1967, and they began play in the 1968 season.[7] Brown was the Bengals' head coach from their inception to 1975. After being dismissed as the Browns' head coach by Art Modell (who had purchased a majority interest in the team in 1961) in January 1963, Brown had shown interest in establishing another NFL franchise in Ohio and looked at both Cincinnati and Columbus. He ultimately chose the former when a deal between the city, Hamilton County, and Major League Baseball's Cincinnati Reds (who were seeking a replacement for the obsolete Crosley Field) was struck that resulted in an agreement to build a multipurpose stadium which could host both baseball and football games. Due to the impending merger of the AFL and the NFL, which was scheduled to take full effect in the 1970 season, Brown agreed to join the AFL as its 10th and final franchise. The Bengals, like the other former AFL teams, were assigned to the AFC following the merger. Cincinnati was also selected because, like their neighbors the Reds, they could draw from several large neighboring cities (Louisville and Lexington, Kentucky; Columbus, Dayton, and Springfield, Ohio) that are all no more than 110 miles (180 km) away from downtown Cincinnati, along with Indianapolis, until the Baltimore Colts relocated there prior to the 1984 NFL season.[8] After Paul Brown's death in 1991, controlling interest in the team was inherited by his son, Mike Brown. In 2011, Brown purchased shares of the team owned by the estate of co-founder Austin Knowlton and is now the majority owner of the Bengals franchise.[9]

The Bengals won the AFC championship in 1981, 1988, and in 2021. After the first two conference championships, they lost to the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowls XVI and XXIII. The 1990s and the early 2000s were a period of great struggle. During that era they were occasionally referred to as "The Bungles," a term coined by Steelers broadcaster Myron Cope,[10] due to their struggles and poor performance.[11][12][13][14] Following the 1990 season, the team went 14 years without posting a winning record, during which time the team did not qualify to play in the NFL playoffs. The Bengals had several head coaches, and several of their top draft picks did not pan out. The team does not have an official general manager. However, Duke Tobin is often, though incorrectly, referred to as the Bengals' general manager because he handles most personnel decisions.[15] In a 2011 survey, Brown was rated as among the worst team owners in American professional sports.[16] The team's fortunes improved in the mid-2000s and they continued up until the mid-2010s, which saw them become more consistent postseason contenders, but they continued to struggle past the regular season.[17][18][19][20] The turning point for the Bengals was during the 2021 season, when they won their first playoff game in 31 years and made back-to-back AFC Championship games. In 2021, they defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 27–24 in overtime and advanced to Super Bowl LVI, their first appearance in the Super Bowl in 33 years, but this time, they lost to the Los Angeles Rams 23–20.[21] The following season in 2022, they also made the AFC Championship game but lost to the eventual Super Bowl champions, the Chiefs, at the same exact score as in Super Bowl LVI.

In a Forbes article on the value of NFL teams as of August 2022, the Cincinnati Bengals were ranked last with a value of $3 billion.[22]

  1. ^ "Cincinnati Bengals Team Facts". ProFootballHOF.com. NFL Enterprises, LLC. Archived from the original on October 3, 2017. Retrieved October 2, 2017.
  2. ^ "Contact Us". Bengals.com. NFL Enterprises, LLC. Archived from the original on February 8, 2022. Retrieved February 8, 2022.
  3. ^ "Bengals New Stripes: Bold, Sleek, Iconic". Bengals.com. NFL Enterprises, LLC. April 19, 2021. Archived from the original on April 19, 2021. Retrieved April 19, 2021. The New Stripes collection includes white, black and orange jerseys with three styles of pants.
  4. ^ Shook, Nick (April 19, 2021). "Cincinnati Bengals unveil new uniforms". NFL.com. NFL Enterprises, LLC. Archived from the original on April 19, 2021. Retrieved April 19, 2021. The Bengals began their participation in the NFL in 1970 with a style that was intentionally familiar when owner Paul Brown thumbed his nose at the team bearing his name up north by dressing his new squad in similarly simple duds. Instead of donning the five-stripe sleeve pattern alternating between brown and orange worn by the Cleveland Browns, the expansion Bengals wore three stripes alternating between black and orange.
  5. ^ "Cincinnati Bengals Team Capsule" (PDF). 2021 Official National Football League Record and Fact Book (PDF). NFL Enterprises, LLC. August 11, 2021. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 8, 2021. Retrieved September 16, 2021.
  6. ^ "Who Appearance Request". Bengals.com. NFL Enterprises, LLC. Archived from the original on June 10, 2018. Retrieved July 5, 2019.
  7. ^ "Cincinnati Bengals - Team History". Pro Football Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on January 30, 2022. Retrieved February 2, 2022.
  8. ^ "Paul Brown - Bengals Founder". Cincinnati Bengals. Retrieved June 26, 2022.
  9. ^ Katzowitz, Josh (December 23, 2011). "Mike Brown Now Owns Most of Bengals Franchise". CBS Sports. Archived from the original on January 23, 2012. Retrieved December 8, 2012.
  10. ^ Goldstein, Richard (February 29, 2008). "Myron Cope, 79, Writer and Steelers Broadcaster, Is Dead". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 26, 2022.
  11. ^ Harvey, Coley (June 17, 2015). "Bengals' O-boss candid with hopes on putting 'laughingstock' past in past". ESPN. Archived from the original on January 13, 2022. Retrieved January 13, 2022.
  12. ^ DeWitt, Dan (February 6, 2022). "Backing the Bengals AND the "Bungles": A Personal History of Loving an Unloved Team". Brevard NewsBeat. Archived from the original on January 19, 2023. Retrieved June 26, 2022.
  13. ^ Chadiha, Jeffri (August 28, 2000). "6 Cincinnati Bengals The league's losingest team of the '90s has a new outlook and a new stadium, but all signs point to more of the same". Sports Illustrated Vault. Archived from the original on September 24, 2022. Retrieved June 26, 2022.
  14. ^ Roling, Chris (October 11, 2019). "100 worst teams in NFL history: Where do 90s and early 2000s Bengals rank?". Bengals Wire. Retrieved June 26, 2022.
  15. ^ Rapien, James (April 15, 2022). "Duke Tobin Ranked in Top 10 of Latest General Manager Power Rankings". AllBengals.
  16. ^ Nachman, Corey (May 23, 2011). "The 16 Worst Owners in Sports: Mike Brown – Cincinnati Bengals". Business Insider. Archived from the original on January 16, 2013. Retrieved December 8, 2012.
  17. ^ "History by the Decades: 2000s". Cincinnati Bengals. Retrieved June 9, 2022.
  18. ^ Reed, Tom (March 5, 2015). "Cincinnati Bengals making character more a priority in draft after turbulent times of the mid 2000s". cleveland.com. Archived from the original on January 19, 2023. Retrieved June 9, 2022.
  19. ^ Clasgens, Dan (May 27, 2009). "The Cincinnati Bengals: A Lost Generation". Bleacher Report. Retrieved June 26, 2022.
  20. ^ Cosenza, Anthony (May 25, 2015). "Bengals 2001 Draft Class Defined Lewis' Early Years". Cincy Jungle. Retrieved June 26, 2022.
  21. ^ "Have the Cincinnati Bengals ended their history of frugality?". FanSided. February 18, 2022. Retrieved June 26, 2022.
  22. ^ "Cincinnati Bengals on the Forbes NFL Team Valuations List". Forbes. Retrieved August 22, 2023.