If you asked me to name some NFL teams that I do NOT hate, this team would have been on that list… until now. As a Bears fan my whole life, I can make the case to hate a lot of teams… mostly NFC. There’s the Packers; that’s a no brainer… I was born into that. The Cowboys have a file as well, because, well, they’re the Cowboys. The Eagles are on the list too… the double doink game… I could have listed more. Out of the AFC, this list should be a lot smaller. The Patriots and Chiefs are on there because they’ve won too damn much for my liking. The other AFC team that has its own file is the Miami Dolphins, mainly for making me cry back in 1985. Surprisingly the Colts don’t have one… obvious reason… we may need to fix that, but not today. Today is reserved for a new team that has drawn my ire. Today, we welcome the Cincinnati Bengals to their personal Hate File.
I think there may be 4,894 other people that agree with me today. You see, me and 4 other guys decided to enter the Circa Survivor contest this year. For those who don’t know, it’s the biggest survivor contest going, with a total of almost 15K entrants this year, which at 1K per entry comes out to an almost 15M guaranteed payout. Yeah, we were hyped up. I signed us up in Vegas, got a proxy, all that… and then we setup meetings. We met a couple times to talk about our strategy, and most importantly, about our 1st week selection. We kept coming back to the Bengals… or Bungles as they will be known from here on out; we should have known better.
As I was watching the Bears on TV “jump out” to an early 17-0 deficit in their game, I was intently following the Bengals-Patriots game on my phone; they too were down early 7-0… here comes the sweat. For God’s sake, it’s the Patriots!!! They have to be the worst team in football this year, or so we thought. I had even made a wager that they would be the last team to win a game this year; another miscalculation on my part. But Jesus, the Bengals at home… come on. Sure, we had the whole Chase drama going on all week, and then Higgins jumped on the injury report… there were signs. Maybe the 1-7 record in the first 2 weeks of the season over the past 4 years should have swayed us, at least ONE of us to make a case, a stronger case, to go with another team; we had other options. The Saints, Falcons, Bucs… we would have survived with 2 of those 3. Maybe we should have known when Burrow came into camp with his new hairdo… I don’t know. It’s easy to look back and kick ourselves at this point; woulda coulda shoulda.
It looked like the Bengals tied it up, but then the points were taken away; wtf? I didn’t even see the play, but I did see that they fumbled in the red zone on the very next snap. No points at all?!?! Maybe we will be in trouble…??? They finally scored in the 2nd half to give us some hope, but for some damn reason they couldn’t stop the Patriots running attack… really? I mean, were they worried about Brissett beating them? Who was he going to throw the ball to? This was the same Patriots offense that struggled against 2nd and 3rd teamers in the preseason. And then, and then… on 4th down late in the game, they decide to punt the ball; why? I know it was in your own territory, but you give the ball back to the Pats this late, all they need is one first down, and it’s over; NOW you’re trusting your defense??? Of course they got the first down. Get a clue Taylor! And Burrow… what a dog. At the end of the day, because he’s Joe Burrow, I thought he would not let his team lose the first game of the season against this shit squad from New England… there’s a reason he shouldn’t be in the same conversation as Patrick Mahomes…. jag off.
I saw my buddy at work this morning; I asked him what he was doing here. He had said if the Bengals lost, he’d drive to Cincinnati and kick his buddy’s ass who lives out there, just because. I wasn’t too happy either. Thankfully, the Bears came back and won; that made me feel better. But man…. couldn’t even get through 1 week of this; that sucks. But like Arnold said… we’ll be BACK!!! Good luck to all who survived, and oh yeah, F the Bengals!
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