I live and work in the Metro Cincinnati area and the Bengals are usually on everyone's brain. During the season, I will gather a few of my co-workers (Tom Otten, William Morgan, Dave Chandler and James Uhlinger) together "at the water cooler" and discuss some Bengals topics.
The 2008 season has been nothing short of an embarrassment. This week, I polled nine Bengals fans about what they've seen from their team this year.
Bengals fans have had a tough time. Not only has their team dragged them around for nearly two decades worth of crap, management has gone out of their way to kill that one little fire inside all fans. It is one thing to be 0-5. It is another when you look unprofessional when doing so.
Fans here a sick of it. One fan is trying to organize a walk-out next week. I don't like that idea because the Bengals already have your money and you just wasted your time. You'd be better off just selling your tickets to Steelers fans (who the Bengals host that week) or give them away to kids who never get a chance to go to an NFL game.
Fans have written letters to the organization about their disgust and have even gotten replies from owner Mike Brown. The bag-heads even took the trip to Dallas last week. Another fan is planning on having a plane with a banner that reads "Step Down Mike Brown" over Paul Brown Stadium before the next home game.
This city is sick of it.
With it being just past the quarter-mark of the season and with the presidential election coming up, I decided to do some polling of Bengals fans I work with to see what they expect:
- 7 of 9 fans polled think the Bengals will win three games or less this season.
- Every fan polled said they'd tell Mike Brown right in the face that he needs to sell the team
- All but one fan said that the offensive line has been the biggest disappointment on offense.
- When asked what word best describes the Bengals, "pathetic" won out. There were a few that said "miserable" and others that said "uninspired". One just simply said "beaten".
One interesting answer I got was when I asked them if you could only keep the Reds or Bengals in Cincinnati, which team would you chose? It was split down the middle (one said to get rid of them both).
This isn't the first franchise to have their fans on the edge, but Bengal fans have endured nearly two decades of this crap. Yeah, they got a brief taste of the good life in 2005 but it has done nothing but make the hurt just that much worse.
