Favorite Bengal Moments

[schweinhart]

2004:

1. 7-11 using Chump Bailey and the gutshot look Shannyhanny had on the sidelines the whole game for a nationwide audience to laugh at. Especially after the embarrassment of the season opener in 2003.

2. The whole 4th Q vs. Ratbirds. That was completely surreal. The new era gained ground.

2003:

1. P-Dub vs. Chiefs. The new era was born, thanks to the feet of a leftover gamer.

2. Schobel TD winner vs. Steelers. The return of the words "Bengals" and "playoffs" in a postive sentence.

[HairOnFire]

...OTOH for all the offensive firepower in the Cleveland game, our alleged defense let a backup QB the Clowns didn't even keep and some no-name at TE beat the tar out of us. I'm certain that particular statement damped my enthusiasm from that game.

I agree, it wasn't a balanced game. But tht doesn't mean the shootout against Cleveland wasn't a statement game. All it means is that the Bengals haven't yet played a game that defensively made the same type of statement. Frankly, I think we're still waiting on that one....unless we were all wrong and that writer was on to something when he pointed to the Bengals run defense against Buffalo last season.

[BengalNation1281]

I have another two:

1. Cincinnati-Buffalo in 2003. I didn't get to see the Oakland game, and they won the week before in Cleveland, but this was the game where I knew that they were getting better. We were tough the entire game, every time it looked like something was going to go wrong we picked it up and prevented major mistakes, the defense was playing well, Kitna was picking them apart with short passes...everything looked much better than it had in the previous weeks.

yeah, we lost 22-16 in OT, but I left that game with a good feeling. We were fighting, we were competitive, and even at 1-4 we were a team that was getting better but wasn't catching the breaks just yet. I knew that things were going to be better after that game. And after the bye week...

2. We beat Baltimore 34-26 in Cincy after leading 34-10 at one point. Baltimore looked to be coming back, but we were able to stop them in the 4th and take the W. I hate the Ravens.

[derekshank]

Haironfire, The reason that the Pittsburgh game was big for me was for one thing it showed the people waving their "terrible towels" that we don't just lay down anymore and lose. Not to mention the announcers who believed the game was over about 2 minutes too early.

I think though that the main reason it was big for me was because when Mike Brown decided not to hire a GM, I was crushed. In fact, with the way Marvin Lewis's first season started, I was tempted to root for them to have another losing season so that Brown would need to do something drastic.

What happened for me though after that game was that Lewis was a good enough coach to get his players to play to their potential... and then at the draft I realized that Mike Brown wasn't running the show anymore. So, was the Pittsburgh game being a "statement" game... Maybe it wasn't to the country as a whole, but it was a statement to me, and to those losers that walked out of Pittsburgh with their heads hanging!

[San Antonio Bengal]

And the loss against the Raiders was uplifting, but mainly because of how miserably the Bengals had played against Denver in the opener....a game where the Bengals were manhandled on nearly every play and burned repeatedly everytime they attempted a blitz or a stunt. One week later, against Oakland, the Bengals dropped almost everything creative from the playbook and went Neandertal-style in the hope that simplicity would produce better results. It did. But their margin of error was as small as a single bad play and as a result they lost....producing growing frustration. I'd agree that there were plenty of positives on display that day, but what statement was made?

The way Cincy had played in the opener (30 - 10 loss vs Denver) had absolutely no bearing on the way that I felt about the Oakland game. Maybe some of you tied the games together, but I didn't even think about the game in week 1. And there wasn't a statement that the Bengals made that day. Sure, they played much better, but the real statement was the one Marvin made to the team. And that's what I remember.

[TippCityRick]

Everything but the 16 losses

This might seem a little unusual for such a list, but the game I remember really well was actually a loss.

What I've taken from the ML era so far is a team that refuses to give up!!!!!! So often in the past we've watched this team lay down when things went wrong. Now I don't have everything in front of me right now, but can anyone name for me a game where this team gave up in the last two years with the exception of the end of year Browns game last year? (And there were some mitigating factors in this one such as injuries and Corey's demeanor both in the locker before, during, and after the game). Marvin keeps this team running full steam until the final gun and I've been proud to be a Bengal's fan most every Monday morning, win or lose.

[HoosierCat]

The way Cincy had played in the opener (30 - 10 loss vs Denver) had absolutely no bearing on the way that I felt about the Oakland game. Maybe some of you tied the games together, but I didn't even think about the game in week 1.

And that's why we have so many favorite moments on display in this thread. All of us come at the games from different perspectives, with different expectations. Thus for Hair, the Oakland loss produced "growing frustration," while for me it was a welcome wave of relief.

Overall, for the upcoming season, what I'm looking for first and foremost is the kind of focus and execution, on the part of the players, that produces consistent results. No more dropping games to chumps like Arizona. No more games where the offense scores 30 points but the D can't seem to find its a$$ with two hands, a flashlight, and a GPS system. Or where the D is a wall but the O can't manage more than a couple FGs. No more games in which we execute just 95% of the time but give up 75 yard runs or 90 yard passes or throw picks in the end zone.

I understand no one is perfect all the time. There will be screw-ups and breakdowns and bad reads. But all of that, and more, has been a habit in Cincy for far too long. The occasional mistake I can live with; this habitual s**t has got to go.

If they can do that, the sky's the limit. :player:

[MexicanFan]

THE FIRST ONE TD CARSON PALMER&CHAD JOHONSON, THAT MEANS A NEW ERA FOR ME.(GOOD DUO)

:player: :player:

THE WHOLE CHANGE OF COACHING STAFF. NOT ANOTHER YEAR WHIT A FORMER ASSISTANT HEAD COACH AND THE SAME OLD TEAM AND ATTITUDE.

BRONCOS VS BENGALS 2004

MY FIRST TRIP TO THE JUNGLE FROM MEXICO TO SEE A VICTORY STEELERS 21- BENGALS 31