Bengals Fans Can’t Fall Into the Steelers Fan Trap
Credit: Philip G. Pavely via Imagn Images
I have come to realize that sometimes you just can’t find what you’re looking for. For example, you will never find a healthy option at Waffle House at 2:30 in the morning. Also, you will never find a civil, yet productive conversation about the Cincinnati Bengals on the dreaded Bengals Reddit page. Unfortunately, both revelations are born from much experience.
Here’s my gripe with Who Dey Nation: Bengals fans are quick to throw the label of “Winning Season” on 2024 and 2025. I hate to break it to you: but they’re far from winning seasons.
You don’t hang banners for 9-8 seasons, especially ones that result in being in Cancun for Wild Card Weekend. But delusional Bengals will still point out that the Bengals have had four “winning” seasons in a row for the first time since 2015. Fine. But here’s the thing: The Bengals actually had five winning seasons in a row from 2011 to 2015. Each of those, by the way, included a playoff appearance.
We remember exactly how each of those playoff appearances turned out. What’s funny is that, on paper, those records all looked great. Four of those seasons saw the Bengals put up double-digit wins. What’s funnier is that despite that, I have never heard a single Bengals fan refer to that era as the “good old days.”
You know why? Because those days sucked, even at the time. It was the same old song and dance every season. The Bengals looked great in the regular season, then didn’t show up for playoffs. The definitive game of that era was their 2015 playoff loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers. They didn’t even have the dignity of playing with Andy Dalton in that game; then-backup and current-St. Louis Battlehawks Legend A.J. McCarron went under center in a forgettable 16-18 loss.
If you remember this game at all, it’s because 99.999% of Bengals Nation called for Marvin Lewis’s dismissal afterward, and rightfully so.
Meanwhile, a 2024 season that’s only memorable for how painful it was at every turn is being touted as a “Winning Season.” It’s the new 8-8! Yet, fans still resist the idea that Zac Taylor should be on the hot seat because of what? Two playoff runs since 2019? If these are the standards you find acceptable, then let’s hop a train from the Queen City to the Steel City to see the logical conclusion of that “winning” standard.
And, look! It’s the Pittsburgh Steelers, who haven’t gone below .500 since 2003. You have to hand it to them, it’s an incredible run of success. Like the Taylor Era Bengals, you can count on the Steelers to never outright stink. They’ve only even been 8-8 four times in the last 21 years! Compare that to 13 double-digit-win seasons in that span — just one fewer than the Bengals have had in their entire history!
But the Steelers Way has also stagnated into little more than on-paper success. They’ve lost five playoff games in a row, and are just 3-8 since their Super Bowl appearance in 2010. Tomlin is as bulletproof as ever, with plenty of the fans hanging onto the Good Old Days, and perhaps some even believing they’re still living them.
That’s super funny, and every Bengals fan knows this. We all laugh at the Steelers fandom as they continue to hype up a track record of excellence that has been an obvious decline from their days as a true powerhouse. Steelers fans will be the first to remind you that Tomlin has never had a losing record in his tenure at Pittsburgh, but we don’t see the Steelers as anywhere near of a threat they were in the late-2000s. To us, it’s ridiculous that Steelers fans still go to bat for Tomlin.
But we all have the internet, and we’ve all seen the Spiderman meme of Spidey pointing at Spidey. That’s exactly what’s happening here.
Do I really need to remind the “But Zac Taylor made the Super Bowl!” that Tomlin made two and has a ring? But that’s the only refuge of Pro-Taylor fans in a debate about his performance: That he got an appearance in the big game. The same fans who mock Tomlin’s job security use a similar bullet point as their only reason that Taylor should be Coach For Life.
It all comes down to standards. For all of Tomlin’s backers, plenty of Steelers fans (and beyond) are starting to call for Tomlin’s seat to finally warm up. They were a dominant force once, aren’t anymore, and those who recognize that fact want the actual glory days back.
Meanwhile, Bengals fans have absolutely no standards because of the decades of incompetence we witnessed. I get it. But bragging about back-to-back 9-8 seasons with no playoff appearance is absolutely insane when you have arguably one of the top three quarterbacks in the NFL. Tomlin took the corpse of Russell Wilson to the playoffs this year. The guy who had to Google “How to describe a beautiful woman” to tell us that Ciara is hot!
We’re on a slippery slope to becoming the Steelers’ fanbase, just without the ring. We’ve already accepted a definition of a “winning season” that includes not making the playoffs. That’s gotta be done. Fans don’t have to settle for hanging their hat on a 5-0 garbage time run as a victory. We need to bring a new swagger and attitude of “I’m better than this.” If not, then two decades from now, we’ll be doing backflips for a 9-8 season where Taylor and Kenny Pickett Jr. or whoever almost leads Cincy to a Wild Card spot.
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