Sleepless in Kansas City

Bengals bogeymen can't wait to see you

A rabid Chiefs fan sat alone in his Man Cave late Sunday afternoon. Quiet dread covered him like a headdress. His worst nightmare had come true. The Bengals are coming to town.

“Oh, no,’’ said the man. “Not again.’’

To the Kansas City Chiefs, the Bengals are Norman Bates dressed like Mother, ripping open the shower curtain. The Bengals are the federales chasing Butch and Sundance —who are those guys? — they are the Michael Myers of Jamie Lee Curtis’ convulsive dreams.

The Bengals are your bogeymen, KC. They know it. More importantly, so do you.

I suppose we could discuss at length here Cincinnati’s 27-10 frolic in the snow in Buffalo. But it would be a waste of time. Almost as big a waste as Buffalo’s effort in the game. We’ll get to it shortly.

The Chiefs have Patrick Mahomes, whose high and highly sprained ankle will feel like a ball and chain by next weekend. Which is appropriate, because that’s what the Men are to KC’s trophy hopes.

The Bengals are Joe Burrow, the Patron Saint of Inevitability, who toyed with Buffalo’s defense on Sunday like it wasn’t even there.

The Chiefs have the 20th-best pass D in the league. The Bengals have 20 receivers (counting Mixon and Perine) who can catch whatever Burrow throws to them. The Bills defenders looked to be on rollerblades all game Sunday. It’s tough to play defense in football when you’re on rollerblades and your head is spinning like Regan MacNeil’s. (Lookitup.)

On offense, the Bengals were — dare we say it? — perfect for their two opening drives. Burrow 9-for-9, two TD passes to receivers who were so open they could have phoned in takeout wings (and eaten them) before a defender came within tackling distance.

On defense, the Bengals rag-dolled the Bills line and kept Josh Allen running for his legend. Allen failed on a grand scale Sunday, but he can take solace in the fact that he wasn’t unique.

In a phrase: The Men made the game look easy. The Bills made it look like Sisyphus rolling the moon uphill. With his nose. Buffalo was never in the game, not even at 17-10. They didn’t have It, or it. The Bengals had both.

Great coaching helped. The Bills never caught up to the Bengals play-calling. The Bengals rushed Allen like he was a matador waiting to be gored. Abject domination on both fronts.

Enjoy Brian and Uncle Lou while you still can.

How else to describe this high beatdown? How ‘bout a little texting? Here’s some verbatim back and forth between me and my son Kelly, the Erstwhile Kid Down the Hall.

When the Bengals went up 14-0 with the efficiency of a guillotine striking a watermelon:

Kelly: Clinical! Everything they’re doing is working.

Me: Game over.

When the refs overturned Chase’s would-be TD catch:

Kelly: That’s a TD, but instead we stop the game to watch for 4 minutes to see if the ball slightly moved.

Me: Eh. Bengals win 38-17 instead of 42-17.

Me: How can Buffalo not be ready to play?

Kelly: I thought they were slightly overrated this year.

Me: I think they stink right now.

Kelly: Good for the Bengals. Glad to see them quiet the haters.

Me: Only SF has a chance to beat them.

Are we getting ahead of our skis? Oh, yeah. It is conceivable KC with Mahomes doing his best Ahab can beat Cincinnati a week from now. Kelce is Kelce and the Chiefs will show up with a boulder on their shoulder. And maybe the Bills were simply emotionally exhausted from the past 3 weeks.

I don’t know if they played as if they had everything to lose. I just saw them thinking and not reacting.

But who says KC is the better team now? Last year, maybe. This year? No Tyreek Hill, for one. We do know this: Dese Bengals are better than Dem Bengals.

And, well, we all know about bogeymen. They never die.

Without further ado:

AS MANY THINGS AS I CAN THINK OF. . .

1. A-Plus to the re- revamped O-line. Their work was better than we could have imagined. Rinse and repeat.

2. The Bills usually rushed just four and still couldn’t defend the pass. In fact, half the time they weren’t even in position to make a play.

3. The Joey B. Inevitability Meter: Could it be anything but 10?

4. Can we puh-leez finally stop whining about the announcers and how they loathe the Bengals? Romo called them a “juggernaut.’’ Nance gushed so superfluously, I thought he was covering the Masters. Time to move on, Who Deys.

5. That said, a big “I toldjaso’’ to the national “experts’’ is satisfying. They will act as if they knew all along that Burrow and the Men were this good. We know differently. Ain’t that right, Peter?

6. The Chiefs have opened as a 1.5-point favorite. Have you opened that Fan Duel account yet?

7. When Tracy Wolfson remarked that the Bengals “dominated from start to finish,’’ Saint Inevitable responded, “That’s what we expected.’’

8. Get that man’s contract done yesterday.