After years of struggles and rebuilding, the Cincinnati Bengals may be on their way to being Super Bowl contenders for the next decade. Zac Taylor’s squad has made consecutive appearances in the AFC Championship Game, and Joe Burrow has some pundits saying he’s the best quarterback in the game.
Have the Bengals won a Super Bowl? In their 56 years, the Bengals don’t have a championship to speak of, a painful fact for a city that does not have an NBA or NHL team. The Reds, meanwhile, have not won a World Series since 1990.
The Bengals are one of 12 NFL franchises to have never won a Super Bowl. Cincinnati is also one of only three franchises with more than two Super Bowl appearances and no titles.
In each of their Super Bowl appearances, the Bengals were only narrowly defeated. Cincinnati has lost three Super Bowls by a total of 12 points. Every game was a one-score loss.
Joe Montana and the San Francisco 49ers broke the hearts of Bengals fans twice in the 1980s. San Francisco beat Cincinnati 26-21 in Super Bowl XVI to conclude the 1981 season. Seven years later in Super Bowl XXIII, Montana engineered an 11-play, 92-yard drive that started with just over three minutes remaining and ended at the 34-second mark when John Taylor caught a game-winning touchdown pass to top the Bengals, 20-16.
Taylor, 39, was hired in February 2019 with hopes of a turnaround. But the woes continued with a 6-25-1 record in his first two seasons.
Cincinnati has seen a resurgence ever since due mostly to some new faces. Ja’Marr Chase quickly emerged as one of the league’s best wide receivers, winning the Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2021. After the 2020 season, the Bengals signed defensive end Trey Hendrickson to a four-year, $60 million contract and in 2021 he was named to his first Pro Bowl.
Last season was the breakout year. Burrow, who joined the Bengals in 2020, nearly ended Cincinnati’s championship drought in just his second NFL season. The Bengals gave up a four-point lead against the Los Angeles Rams with 85 seconds left in Super Bowl LVI. The 2021 season ended with a 23-20 Rams’ victory over the Bengals, which were stopped on fourth-and-one at the Rams’ 49-yard line.
Burrow recently told reporters that the Bengals’ championship window is his “whole career.” If the former No. 1 overall draft pick can stay healthy, there’s a good chance that he’ll put an end to Cincinnati’s streak of futility.
GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA via AFP / Rob Carr
The Bengals, founded in 1968 as an AFL franchise, joined the NFL with the merger in 1970. The Bengals have had 20 seasons in which they finished the regular season over .500.
In arguably their worst stretch in the NFL, Cincinnati failed to reach the playoffs between 1991 and 2004. The Bengals would reach the playoffs in six-of-seven seasons from 2009-2015, but failed to win a game.
