Actively rooting against your favorite team seems to defy all notions of common sense when it comes to sports fandom. Herm Edwards told us that you play to win the game, and consequentially, you support your team in the hopes that they will experience success. I imagine you’d be hard-pressed to find many individuals who got into the ‘sports fan’ game to watch their beloved team crash and burn on a weekly basis, although at times it may seem as though that is what Bengals fans have signed themselves up for.
This season, however, is different. As the Bengals drearily hobble their way to the end of a depressing season, Bengals fans can and should be hoping that the team loses their remaining three contests.
It’s never a nice feeling to lose games. It’s been discouraging to see Zac Taylor struggle in his first year as a head coach, raising legitimate concerns about whether he is the man to guide this team into their uncertain future. The Bengals currently hold the worst record in the league, yet the talent on the roster suggests that this shouldn’t be the case. Winning games this year would make us all feel a lot more at ease with the direction of this team moving forward, both from a coaching and playing standpoint.
Truth is, the Bengals have been better than their 1-12 record suggests. Zac Taylor hasn’t exactly set the league alight in his rookie year as head coach, but with better quarterback play, this team could have collected 3 or 4 additional victories by now. If the team was a comprehensive catastrophe across the board, picking up a couple of wins to finish the year might help to ease concerns that all is lost. But injuries have cursed this team, the defense is starting to show signs of improvement, and there isn’t necessarily an overwhelming sense of hopelessness surrounding the organization. For this reason, picking up meaningless wins at the end of a lost season is a futile endeavor.
Joe Burrow looks like he has the potential to be a special talent at the next level. There’s still plenty of time between now and April 23rd 2020, when the first round of the draft will take place, but the LSU quarterback is the clear-cut No. 1 prospect at the position. The Bengals simply cannot afford to miss out on the opportunity to bring in the potential savior of the franchise next year. It will take a great deal to turn around the fortunes of this organization, and every college prospect comes with a certain degree of uncertainty, but this could be the shot in the arm that the Bengals need.
Winning a solitary game is less than ideal for a first-time head coach in their debut season, but there’s a hard cap on your success when forced to trot out Andy Dalton or Ryan Finley on a weekly basis. Taylor is deserving of criticism and skepticism, but it’s very difficult to judge him given the dire circumstances. With that in mind, the benefits of winning games to close out the season are far outweighed by the monumental change that could occur if the team were in a position to select Burrow in 2020.
If the Bengals can win a game or two and still end up with the top pick, great. If they must lose out to earn the right to draft Burrow, roll out the tanks. Be willing to sacrifice those sweet, brief dopamine hits that wash over you when the Bengals are victorious on a Sunday. The long-term outlook is far more important, and the high that this team will be on if they are fortunate enough to land the number one overall pick will be more than worth it.
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