Bengals Are Champs

And highly full of themselves

It had to suck to be the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday. You came into Cincinnati in a hospital ship on the Ohio River, with a made-for-August football team, then you had to play the Bengals, who had blood in their eyes.

The Men could have been playing anyone. Baltimore, KC, the ‘68 Jets, the ‘69 Mets, Joe Montana, Muhammad Ali, Edgar Allan Poe his ownself. It wouldn’t have mattered, Unfortunately for the Ravens, it just happened to be them.

Beware the football team that feels disrespected. Especially when that football team is very successful and thinks very highly of itself. The Bengals are their quarterback. Joe Burrow is not only an MVP candidate. But he is a quietly cocky badass who, if he played on a coast or were a Dallas Cowboy, or if he were less subtle with his extra-large confidence, arrogance and swagger, would be making headlines every damned day.

As it was, Burrow and his guys went up 17-0 before the first Patrick Mahomes commercial. Burrow couldn’t throw deep enough fast enough. He threw a long TD pass to Ja’Marr Chase to get it to 17-0.

But it was the previous possession that showed what the Bengals are all about, and you can take that any way you like. Joe Mixon concluded an eight-play drive with a 1-yard TD run. Then Mixon and a fistful of his friends made a large act of flipping a coin. We don’t need to explain why. Do we?

Depending on how deeply you’re in love with the Bengals, The Flip elicited 1 of 2 reactions:

1. Flip this, Roger.

2. Get over yourselves, Bengals.

I’ll give you one guess which camp had my tent.

The Bengals spent a quarter flipping the league the bird. It was a fine chuckle. Some of it.

But here’s the thing: The league would have to care about the Bengals to disrespect them. The league does not care about the Bengals. The fact is, by nearly every measure the Bengals are the 3rd-best team in the AFC. Were they going to make the Chiefs flip a coin? The Bills? Had the Ravens won, they’d have been 2-0 against Cincinnati. You’re still going to award a home game to the Bengals?

It was the best of a bad situation, and I don’t even like the Park Avenue people.

This performance art did no one any good. Not even the Bengals, who have to play Baltimore again next weekend. If you’re good, you know it and you play like you know it. You don’t have to spend extended time basking in your own reflections, all full of yourselves.

You weren’t even that great Sunday.

Against all odds, the Bengals somehow managed to pull out a win at home against a team starting a third-string rookie QB who was working with an August offense. Anthony Brown went undrafted last spring. He might have proven wrong every team in the league, if he’d had his Pro Bowl tight end, both his starting wide receivers and each of his starting running backs. We’ll never know, because none of them played.

The Ravens knew they had little to gain by winning Sunday. They acted like it.

Look, congrats on 12-4 and eight in a row and a 2nd division trophy in a row. Good job of coming out fired up and taking an unsinkable 17-0 lead. Mission accomplished. The Bengals are tough, resilient, talented and deep. They’re well coached. The vibes are good, which is very hard for a defending conference champion to do.

But now’s not the time to get all full of yourselves. Take a look back at 12-4. Specifically, the quarterbacks you’ve played against.

Anthony Brown was the latest in a conga-line of backup QBs the Bengals have faced. In 16 games, Cincinnati had to deal with very good QBs for an entire game exactly twice, Mahomes and Lamar Jackson. They saw Tua for a quarter and a half and Josh Allen for half a quarter.

The rest of the schedule was clotted with a roster of Who’s-Not-Whos.

Whom they didn’t defend: Hurts, Cousins, Prescott, Herbert, Rodgers, Lawrence. And basically, Allen and Tagovailoa.

Whom they did: Trubisky, Rush, Flacco, Bridgewater, Dalton, Mariota, Brissett, Mayfield.

And Brown, whom they might actually get to meet again next weekend. That’s not excellence. It’s good fortune. And we haven’t even mentioned that Burrow has missed almost no snaps.

In retrospect, Zac Taylor should thank Roger Goodell. Any worries the coach had with motivation ended the second after the flip was announced. As center Ted Karras said to radio man Dave Lapham postgame, “I felt like a little shot wat taken at us and what we accomplished this year.’’

Duly noted. I’ve written all season that the Bengals were overlooked by the national “experts.’’ Ultimately, so what?

Next weekend, to quote Broooce, “Things get real quite real fast.’’

You don’t have to act All That, Bengals. You only have to play that way.