Cincinnati Bengals

From Paul Brown's vision to AFC contenders.

The Cincinnati Bengals are a professional American football team based in Cincinnati. The Bengals compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. The team plays its home games at Paycor Stadium in downtown Cincinnati.

Quick Facts

Bengals scoring leader: Evan McPherson (3 field goals)
Chiefs scoring leader: Harrison Butker (6 field goals)
Key touchdown passes: Mahomes to Pacheco, Browning to Mixon
Final drive outcome: Incomplete pass on 4th and 27

Lore & Background

Former Cleveland Browns head coach Paul Brown began planning for the creation of the Bengals franchise in 1965, and Cincinnati's city council approved the construction of Riverfront Stadium in 1966. Finally, in 1967, the Bengals were founded when a group headed by Brown received franchise approval by the American Football League (AFL) on May 23, 1967, and they began play in the 1968 season. Brown was the Bengals' head coach from their inception to an unspecified date.

After being dismissed as the Browns' head coach by Art Modell in January of an unspecified year, Brown had shown interest in establishing another NFL franchise in Ohio and looked at both Cincinnati and Columbus. He ultimately chose the former when a deal between the city, Hamilton County, and Major League Baseball's Cincinnati Reds was struck that resulted in an agreement to build a multipurpose stadium. Due to the impending merger of the AFL and the NFL, which was scheduled to take full effect in an unspecified season, Brown agreed to join the AFL as its 10th and final franchise.

The Bengals, like the other former AFL teams, were assigned to the AFC following the merger. After Paul Brown's death in 1991, controlling interest in the team was inherited by his son, Mike Brown. In 2011, Brown purchased shares of the team owned by the estate of co-founder Austin Knowlton and is now the majority owner of the Bengals franchise.

Reader's Guide

The Bengals won the AFC championship in unspecified years. After each of the 1981 and 1988 conference championships, they went on to lose to the San Francisco 49ers, in Super Bowls XVI and XXIII. The team struggled greatly in the 1990s and the early 2000s. Following the 1990 season, the team went 14 years without making the NFL playoffs or posting a winning record.

The team's fortunes improved in the mid-2000s and into the mid-2010s. The turning point for the Bengals was during the 2021 season, when they won their first playoff game in 31 years and advanced to the first of two consecutive AFC Championship games. In 2021, they defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 27–24 in overtime and advanced to Super Bowl LVI, where they lost to the Los Angeles Rams 23–20. They advanced to the AFC Championship game again in 2022 but lost to the eventual Super Bowl champion Chiefs by a score of 23–20.

The team does not have an official general manager. However, Duke Tobin is the Bengals' 'de facto general manager' because he handles most personnel decisions.

Did You Know?

The Bengals were named to give a link with past professional football in Cincinnati, as another Cincinnati Bengals team existed from 1937 to 1942.
Paul Brown chose the exact shade of orange used by his former team, the Cleveland Browns, and added black as the secondary color.
For their first two seasons, the Bengals played at Nippert Stadium, the current home of the University of Cincinnati Bearcats.
In a Forbes article on the value of NFL teams as of August 2022, the Cincinnati Bengals were ranked last with a value of $3 billion.