One Before You Die?

Best have your insurance paid up this fall, BengalFan

Just One Before I Die.

It’s on a shirt, it’s in your heart, you start and end every season with it. You’ve seen enough pain. Lord knows, that’s true. Your life as a Bengals fan is a lesson in love, unrequited. It’s everywhere you’ve turned. Romeo was a rookie compared to you.

Steel Curtains and stolen hopes, John Taylor and Aaron Donald. Kimo-therapy. Tim’s leg, Stanley’s relapse, Andy’s thumb. Pac and Tez, nightmaring you still.

The Lost Decade.

You’ve earned this. You’ve earned that ring, that parade, that moment when everything turns out right. That doesn’t mean you’ll get it. The Bengals remind you that life isn’t fair.

And yet, you persist. It’s an optimism not unique to Cincinnati, it’s just more pronounced here. The line between feeling good and feeling hexed— optimism versus fatalism — is thinner here than anywhere else in the NFL, save maybe Buffalo.

Just One Before I Die.

Let me have that ecstatic moment, you say. Let me cry with joy at season’s end. Show me my virtue as a fan has meant something. I accept that we can’t have pleasure in life without also knowing pain. I have a PhD. in pain.

Just One.

Is this the year?

It might be. It could be. You could suggest it should be, but that sounds a bit entitled. In the NFL, entitlement is for team owners, not for those who labor for them, or fans who build them stadia.

Let’s just say the chances for the Bengals to win it all are better right now than they’ve been in the team’s 55-year history. Your Death wish is realistic.

Start with this: Joe Burrow is the Bengals most important player. Ever.

Burrow’s cred in undeniable, but it’s his place in Bengals history that seals the Best Ever deal. The Stadium Lease isn’t a thing yet, but it will be soon enough. It’s up in ‘26. The Family knows full well what’s going on in Buffalo and Nashville re new playpens. It has visited the palaces in LA and Atlanta.

The bills are coming due. The Brown Fam have been good tenants (yeah, sorry, but it’s true) but they’re also business people. They’ll want major improvements to PayJoe. Or maybe they’ll do what the Titans did: Hire an independent firm that will look at the current stadium and proclaim that it would cost almost as much to renovate as to build new.

Then what, Hamilton County?

There’s a possible solution. All it involves is the Bengals winning a Bowl in the next couple years. How could a city/county/region say no to a Super Bowl champ blessed with a primetime QB in his prime?

I coined a term for Burrow two seasons ago, after yet another ritual carving-up of another team’s defense:

Inevitable. Burrow is inevitable. He happens you, no matter what you do. That speaks to his talent, his attitude, his toughness, his demeanor et cetera. It’s a descriptive that can be applied to just one other QB currently working, Patrick Mahomes. His inevitability is a shade greater than Burrow’s. Hence his two rings.

The Bengals haven’t paid Burrow yet, which might not be awful, just strange. But they have tried to protect their investment by adding quality linemen to protect Saint Joe’s aspirations. The line isn’t great or even Very Good. Baltimore’s is better. Cleveland’s is right there. But it’s dependable enough to get the Bengals where they need to go.

The defense is young and athletic. The team is tested, the coaches know what they know, the culture proved last year it wasn’t a passing thing. There really is no reason the Bengals shouldn’t be in the Big Bowl photo. They might even finish the job.

Unless Burrow gets hurt, in which case you’re going to live to 150.

I’m never one to do deep-stat-dives on seasons. It bores me. Teams have It, or they don’t. KC has It. Philly, the 49ers. On the edges are Buffalo, the Chargers, Jacksonville and Baltimore, with a trendy nod at Detroit, though it’s damned hard to see the Lions ever having It. They’re the Lions, man.

The Bengals have It. Here’s hoping they kill you.

Now, then. . .

THAT SAID, THEY’RE GONNA LOSE SUNDAY. . . In Cleveland, to the Browns. Burrow’s going to play (was there ever a doubt?) but he hasn’t thrown a live pass since KC last winter. The Browns have a D that can bother Burrow, ie Myles Garrett. Denzel Ward will play.

The Browns have loads to prove. Deshaun Watson stunk upon his late-season return last year, but there’s no reason to believe that was anything but rust. Zac Taylor seems to prefer to prepare his team for the grind, not for the one-game glamor. That’s been effective the past two years, but it doesn’t help the Bengals early in the season.

And Burrow’s calf isn’t perfect.

Of the muscle strain, Burrow said this week, “It just takes while to get back from those. They're finicky. You've got to spend more time healing than you anticipate. We're in that process right now."

Being in the healing “process’’ isn’t ideal when Cleveland’s pass rushers are in front of you. It’ll be a no-big-deal L up there Sunday. Call it 20-24.

FOOTBALL AND BASEBALL TEAM OWNERS hate it when Forbes magazine releases its annual reports on the values of their teams. It pulls back the curtain a bit, so ordinary people can see just how well off these owners are. Here’s how well off:

NFL franchise values continue to surge off the league’s increasing television and streaming rights deals as the average team is now worth a record $5.1 billion, per Forbes. 

The average franchise value is 14% more than last year’s Forbes NFL list, an increase that was also driven by the $6.05 billion sale of the Washington Commanders in July to a group led by Josh Harris as the highest-price ever paid for a U.S. professional sports team. 

Revenue for the NFL approached $20 billion at the league-level in 2022 while average revenue for the league’s 32 teams reportedly increased 8% to $581 million. The Dallas Cowboys remain the league’s most valuable franchise at $9 billion, while the Cincinnati Bengals rank last at $3.5 billion. Four NFL teams—the Tennessee Titans, Las Vegas Raiders, Miami Dolphins, and Cleveland Browns—had their value rise at least 20% over the past year.

Don’t feel bad for the Bengals. Their “operating income’’ i.e. profit was $104 mil last year, which put them 16th in the league. Which ain’t bad for a small market business.

Here’s the whole list.

NOT THAT MY OPINION MATTERS, BUT JOHN SADAK seems to have cooled his hype jets lately and the Reds TV broadcast is better for it. Man is always prepared and many of his stats are both interesting and relevant.

Think of Baseball’s best broadcasters, TV and radio: Marty, Scully, Jack Buck, Jon Miller, Gary Cohen. Way back to Ernie Harwell. They very rarely. . . screamed. Even a monumental homer such as Bob Prince saved his screams for Mazeroski, Game 7 longballs.

The game always tells the best story. Let it.

TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . and an assignment:

We’ve discussed one-hit wonders in This Space. How ‘bout one-album wonders? What group/solo artist made just one very good album? I loved Marshall Crenshaw’s self-titled debut, for example. The rest of his catalog doesn’t come close.

This guy, too. White Ladder was terrific. The stuff before and after, not so much. This is from White Ladder.