NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE
Winning Is the Only Thing
Notes from the Jungle
I moved to Cincinnati in 1998. As they were throughout most of the ‘90’s and early 2000’s, the hometown Bengals were mired in a 3–13 season that cast a pall over the mood of the entire city.
The Bengals’ long-running loser status became a hallmark of not just the team, but the city itself. For many of my first years in the city I thought about moving to a place with a more positive outlook on life.
I made it a point of pride to rarely watch the Bengals, much less buy their gear or their cold, hard “hot” pretzels. I always told people I’d be the first one on the bandwagon if they ever changed their ways, but until then I was happy to raise kids and ignore the “Bungles.”
But then a crazy thing happened. Perhaps inspired by the energy, smarts, and money poured into the resurgence of Cincinnati’s downtown core and in particular its Over the Rhine neighborhood, the Bengals altered their mindset.
Seemingly for the first time since team founder Paul Brown died in 1991, the team started allowing the football people to make the football decisions and allowed the business people to make the business decisions. And alas, success followed this fundamental shift in strategy.
It wasn’t until the Bengals’ magical run to the Super Bowl in 2021 with quarterback Joe Burrow at the helm that the Bengals caught the attention of the wider football world, but change was already afoot in the Queen City.
Now, in the midst of another charge toward the Playoffs, the Bengals and the city share a common heartbeat. Like Burrow strolling off the bus at Super Bowl LVI, the city walks with far more swagger than it used to. We believe we can do anything, and won’t let anybody prove us wrong.
Nobody would argue that we should tie the future of the city to the future of its football team, but the Bengals’ ascendance and the city’s place on a myriad of “best places to live” lists is not pure coincidence.
Like the team’s return to the top of the NFL, the city’s arrival on these lists was the result of smart strategy and lots of hard work. But with 19 victories and counting over the last two years it seems Red Sanders was right when he said, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”
