Ending the drought

[skycruiser]

One of many fantastic articles from Pail Dehner this week. He makes the few bucks a month to subscribe to the athletic well worth it

‘Time for us to turn the page’: Bengals’ playoff drought resonates across 31 years of players, coaches
Paul Dehner Jr. and Jay Morrison Jan 11, 2022 81
Kevin Walker knows it’s coming. Every time.

Whether meeting colleagues at his new job or shaking hands and making rounds in football coaching circles, Walker braces.

“It always inevitably comes up,” he said.

Walker played linebacker for the Cincinnati Bengals from 1988 to 1993. He played in the club’s last playoff victory on Jan. 6, 1991. One week later against the Raiders, his tackle ended the football career of Bo Jackson.

And 31 years later, through a series of impossible bad breaks and devastating defeats, the Bengals still have not won a playoff game since. It’s the longest such drought in all of North American professional sports.

In Cincinnati, it’s commonly referred to as the Curse of Bo Jackson. On Saturday against these very same Raiders at 4:30 p.m., it comes full circle.

“It’s part of the introductions and everything,” Walker said. “Kevin Walker, oh, you know, the guy who ended Bo Jackson’s career. Kevin Walker, oh, you know, the guy that’s responsible for the curse. It’s my tagline now.”


Kevin Walker’s tackle injured Bo Jackson’s hip, and it would be the last NFL down Jackson ever played. (Getty Images)
Walker lives in Cincinnati. Never left after his football career ended. He had twin sons two years after the tackle. They played prominent high school football in the city, and Walker even served as a coach on those teams.

He follows the Bengals. Understandable, really, when you consider how much this drought, unfortunately, followed him through the past three decades.

Joe Burrow on Saturday will head the latest edition to try to end the dry spell. This team has arguably the best chance yet to change the conversation for the Bengals, as well as for those who identify their professional football careers with the franchise.

None more than Walker.

“I am ready to put it to rest,” he said. “It’s been a long time. It’s nice they are back in the hunt, but it’s unfortunate that when they are, that comes front and center. It’s time for us to turn the page.”

This drought has spanned 681 players, 97 coaches and millions of paying customers over the years. Each is affected by this canyon of postseason futility differently.

It might not resonate on a team upon which only three players on the active roster were alive the last time Cincinnati won a postseason game, but those who have lived it for over three decades will be watching and waiting. The alumni maintain a unique perspective on how the Bengals got here, why it could end and what it would mean if it finally and mercifully did Saturday evening at Paul Brown Stadium.

“I think a playoff win would do a lot to validate everything and erase some things of the past,” former Bengals defensive tackle John Thornton said.

It’s been 11,326 days, 30 seasons and six presidencies since the Bengals beat the Houston Oilers at Riverfront Stadium in the first round of the 1990 season playoffs.

The longest active drought for playoff advancement in the NHL is 25 seasons (Panthers), in MLB is 26 seasons (Reds) and in the NBA is 17 seasons (Timberwolves/Kings/Hornets).

The failure hovers as a defining cloud over the organization and Brown family ownership.

Players and coaches who passed through the halls during seven winless playoff trips and took turns over three decades trying to end the streak know firsthand what it’s been like to be associated with the team as the run of futility grew year after year.

In any debate, the trump card of the streak could always be played.

We canvassed players and coaches covering every year of the drought to gain a better perspective — not necessarily on what it means to the current team that mostly plays blissfully disconnected from the sins of the past, but for their view of this beast that’s grown in Cincinnati over three decades.

The voices:

• Kevin Walker (linebacker, 1988-93, 44 games)
• Ken Anderson (quarterback, 1971-86, 192 games; coach, 1993-2002, 160 games)
• Mark Duffner (coach, 1997-2002, 2019-current, 145 games)
• T.J. Houshmandzadeh (wide receiver, 2001-08, 105 games)
• Marvin Lewis (head coach, 2003-18, 256 games)
• John Thornton (defensive lineman, 2003-08, 93 games)
• Chris Crocker (defensive back, 2008-13, 71 games)
• Kevin Huber (punter, 2009-current, 207 games)
• C.J. Uzomah (tight end, 2015-current, 80 games)
• Zac Taylor (head coach, 2019-current, 49 games)
• Joe Burrow (quarterback, 2020-current, 26 games)
• Ja’Marr Chase (wide receiver, 2021-current, 17 games)

Crocker: It is sad because my career is really defined around days I played with the Bengals because that’s where I had most of my success. It always comes down to, “Man, you just never won a playoff game.”

Anderson: It bothers you. Because of the frustrations over the last several years, people forget about the football tradition in Cincinnati. In the ’70s and ’80s, we were as good as any team in the NFL. People kind of forget those days when we had that winning tradition in Cincinnati, and now I think it’s coming back.

Houshmandzadeh: When you’re playing, you don’t look at the dysfunction of an organization. You think, “We’ve got good players, we’ve got good coaches, we’re gonna win.” When you retire, you start to analyze and look at those things. What Katie (Blackburn) and Troy (Blackburn) have done quietly behind the scenes — or maybe it’s not so behind the scenes — you’ve got to give them credit because a lot has changed since I was there. … I wasn’t one of those guys saying, “As long as Mike Brown is in control of the team, they’ll never win.” I never thought about that when I was playing.

Lewis: Any time I see Mike (Brown) have success, it makes me smile.

Thornton: Here’s how I feel as a former Bengal: I’ve always supported the Brown family. Even when I was doing radio shows, people would say, “You just say that because you played here.” No, they do things the right way, and they are good people. You are just happy for them it finally broke in their favor. And now it’s going to be like, “Hey, can you get a playoff win?” That’s what escaped Marvin.

Lewis: The goal was always to win the Super Bowl, and the only way to win the Super Bowl is you’ve got to get through the playoffs. It’s something I failed to do.

Thornton: The playoff thing I think was a circumstance. Was Marvin a good enough coach to win a playoff game? Yes.

Crocker: It could just be bad juju, I don’t know, but we never got to the playoffs healthy. That was the big problem. I think it honestly was because we always ran out of gas.

Thornton: I know it’s an excuse people probably get tired of hearing about. If Carson (Palmer) doesn’t get hurt in ’05, we would have probably gone to the AFC Championship.

Huber: Then we had the run when we went to the playoffs five years in a row.

Thornton: It burdened that team.

Huber: It was then where it felt like, “Man, we got to do this — we got to do this.” Because for so long there was that big gap where in the ’90s they never made the playoffs.

Duffner: I loved those years. I was here from 1997 to 2002. No, I didn’t feel like there was a negative vibe like that or we are cursed. I didn’t feel like that at all. Each year presented new challenges.

Huber: But when we kept getting there, we couldn’t get over the hump. Kept getting there, couldn’t get over the hump. You start thinking, “Man, we got to get this figured out and just squash this so we can all move on.”

Thornton: Every time they would play in the playoffs, you would think, “This is the time that they win,” and they would play their worst game.

Walker: At first, it was kind of funny and you’d laugh about (the curse) and all that, but as it came up more and more frequent as those couple years passed, it was almost as if it had some validity all of a sudden. “Maybe this thing is real.”

The stereotypical conversation surrounding the Bengals always sounded the same, right or wrong. No matter how many victories in a season or how successful draft classes were, the string of seasons without a playoff victory would be held out as validation for all criticism.

Small scouting departments, no indoor facilities, being conservative in free agency, a corner-cutting front office, players with off-field issues. Over time, they all were critics’ crutches and even the most unfounded were helpless against the fact the team never advanced in the postseason.

Crocker: It doesn’t bother me, but it definitely is a point of envy for those who left the Bengals I played with that went on to win playoff games. Carson (Palmer), (Andrew) Whitworth. I’m like, “Man, damn, I’m happy for them but a little envious.”

Houshmandzadeh: (Jokes about the Bengals) don’t bother me. If they say it in front of me, I’ll talk shit back to them. I don’t care. That’s just my personality.

Burrow: I grew up in Ohio, I knew exactly everything that everybody says about the Bengals. Had a bunch of friends that are Bengals fans growing up, and I knew they hadn’t won a playoff game in a long time.

Thornton: In a roundabout way, I think this team can probably erase a lot of things if they can just go get a playoff win because they have had teams here before that were just as good, probably a little bit better, but this one seems to be young and they have everybody involved now.

Uzomah: We got guys that haven’t been alive, dudes born in 2000, know what I’m saying? It’s different. Some guys might not know about it.

Taylor: We don’t talk about it at all. This team is the 2021 Bengals. That is all that matters.

Duffner: It’s a little bit on how coaches and leadership approaches those type of things. Do you harp on, ‘We didn’t do this, didn’t do this, or ‘We are going to do this?’ It’s how you craft the personality of the team.

Uzomah: Having some young guys that are just going out — to be honest, having Ja’Marr be like, ‘I’m just going out and balling.’ I don’t know anything else but to go out there and have fun and play football. That’s a great attitude to have.

Chase: They have not (won in the postseason) in a long time and that is all we constantly hear. Finally having everyone say the opposite of what they used to: That is what we are trying to do here. That is our goal.

Houshmandzadeh: When you’re playing, honestly, you don’t think about that. You think: “We’re good. We’re gonna fuckin’ win.”

Huber: I don’t think it’s a burden to us, to most of the guys on this team, because it’s never really talked about. Nobody really cares. We have a game we are going to play, and we are going to win it. The simplicity of that right there is what has really benefited us this year.

Burrow: It’s just another game, another playoff game for us that we’ve been playing the last month of the season.

Thornton: The way they beat the Steelers — stuff like that shows you they are not burdened by the past. Since I’ve been here, the Steelers have been the Steelers. It’s a huge game. I don’t see these guys even looking at the Steelers like they are a problem, and that is a whole different mentality because they have no idea.

Anderson: As a former player, you still feel like part of the team, and you get excited for them.

Houshmandzadeh: I went to the Steelers game this year when we fuckin’ beat the shit out of them. I was telling everybody we were gonna beat the shit out of ’em, and we did.


Joe Burrow dives in for a touchdown against the Steelers. The Bengals swept Pittsburgh in the 2021 regular season. (Katie Stratman / USA Today)
At the core of 31 years are two groups: ownership and the fans. They are the constants. Players come and go. Coaches do, too. They move on to other teams and other endeavors. For the Brown family and a city often rightfully uncertain about whether it should invest emotionally and financially, this drought is defining.

As much as everyone will assess the postseason debut of Burrow and Taylor, in many ways this weekend is about those in the owner’s suite and filling the seats inside Paul Brown Stadium. This is their demon. They built a team to exorcise it.

Anderson: Mike takes a lot of heat, but you’ve got to give them a lot of credit. I’m very happy for Mike.

Lewis: Any time you spend as much time as I did and talk to somebody every day for damn near 16 years, obviously that’s somebody you’re very, very close to. I’ve spoken to him two or three times, and I’m really happy for the success they’ve had this season. So that would be great to see them win in the playoffs.

Uzomah: It would be huge for the city. Having them behind us, cheering us on in The Jungle, that would be kind of monumental for morale around the city.

Houshmandzadeh: I enjoyed my time in Cincinnati. Wish I would’ve never left. But if hindsight was 20/20, maybe we’d all make a lot of different decisions. I’ll always root for them. I’m not gonna lie. I’m not gonna be impartial. I want to see them win. That city is fantastic, so to see them win, I can only imagine how they’re gonna react.

Anderson: What’s really exciting is to see the crowds that have been there and to get sellouts back. I love seeing how much the crowds are into it.

Huber: I have a unique perspective because I never left. I got to see it through the eyes of a fan growing up, then as a player. It would definitely mean a lot to me to be able to be part of that team that does that.

Houshmandzadeh: I actually think they’re gonna do it. It doesn’t matter who they play; they’re gonna do it this year. Joe’s not gonna let them lose in the first round. I’m tellin’ ya — there’s something about this dude. Unless they just play absolutely terrible, they’re winning it this year. They’ll win a playoff game. They might get to the Super Bowl if some bounces go their way.

Burrow: I never thought about (going to a downtrodden franchise); my expectation coming in was to win a lot of games and play well. That didn’t happen Year 1, and I had an injury. But there was never any thought that this team hasn’t won a playoff game or been very good for a while. It was what can I do to come in, play good football and prove to the organization that I was the right guy to draft and prove to everybody else I could be a really good player in this league for a long time?

Thornton: To me, this team is totally different and don’t care about that whole drought. Those guys won national championships two years ago.

Uzomah: You don’t think about a curse or anything like that. You are out there competing.


C.J. Uzomah celebrates with fans after the Bengals clinched the AFC North with a win over the Chiefs. (Kareem Elgazzar / USA Today)
The concept of the curse associates more with fan fear than as a factor in Saturday’s outcome. The Bengals checked off historical boxes on almost a weekly basis this season: Pittsburgh, prime time, big games.

“Playoffs” is merely another box for them to check, not a crippling cross carried on the back of the franchise for three decades. For the city, the organization and many former players who endured the fallout of futility, the stakes of this weekend and perspective are clearer.

“You couldn’t tell me the year Carson got hurt that we weren’t gonna come back and do it again,” Houshmandzadeh said. “And you take a lot of shit for granted because you’re young. “We’ll be right back. We’ll be back next year.” And before you know it, the team is done. So that would be my advice to anybody: Don’t say, “We’re young, we’ll be back next year.” Because it’s not a guarantee.”


Steelers defensive lineman Kimo von Oelhoffen’s infamous hit on Carson Palmer’s knee dashed a promising postseason for the Bengals. (Jay Drowns / Sporting News via Getty Images)
If there’s an obvious lesson from 31 years in the playoff desert, it’s to never assume. Never assume this is the year. Never assume the game is over. Never assume Bo isn’t hurt that bad.

The fact the Raiders return The Curse of Bo Jackon full circle adds only to the intrigue of this opportunity. Nobody knows that better than the man still trying to shake that tagline.

“It’s all in fun,” Walker said. “I have a couple of good friends, they are avid Raiders fans, so they are totally unforgiving, like I ruined that franchise. So they give it to me far worse. It’s really exciting what has happened. I know we have had some good teams in the past, but what the boys are doing now, it’s a really exciting opportunity for us to turn the page on it.”

[stripesincarolina]

I feel like reading this was bad juju.

[skycruiser]

I feel like reading this was bad juju.

that’s the most Bengals thing I’ve ever heard

[orange_black]

i agree with all these points.... especially when they talk about this team being a different animal.

I am usually a loudmouth when it comes to football... but this year has been different. I have kept quiet, confidently watching the wins roll in....

I have done the same for this playoff game. I am not touting my horn and promising big numbers and a win.... but quietly, in the back of my head, i have great feeling about this game.... because this team is different.... and I have never seen a player like Burrow in stripes.

[Joe Bananas]

I think we need to have Bo Jackson in attendance.

[Bengals1]

Winning a playoff game comes with enough pressure of its own. Fans and the media don't need to add 31 years of history on the shoulders of these current players.

Just play the damn game.
.

[Jmble]

Winning a playoff game comes with enough pressure of its own. Fans and the media don't need to add 31 years of history on the shoulders of these current players.

Just play the damn game.
.

Says the guy who brings up "history" when discussing this team's chances more than anybody else.

[Bengals1]

Winning a playoff game comes with enough pressure of its own. Fans and the media don't need to add 31 years of history on the shoulders of these current players.

Just play the damn game.
.

Says the guy who brings up "history" when discussing this team's chances more than anybody else.

There's a difference between fans talking between themselves and social and mainstream media talking about it 24/7.

Like I've said before, this forum is basically just a small group of guys talking and bitching amongst themselves. I was mostly referring to the pressure the sports media keeps heaping on this team.

[stripesincarolina]

Winning a playoff game comes with enough pressure of its own. Fans and the media don't need to add 31 years of history on the shoulders of these current players.

Just play the damn game.
.

Says the guy who brings up "history" when discussing this team's chances more than anybody else.

It's ok Jmble, B1 is most frequently associated with the saying "pot calling the kettle black". I chalk it up to his age and needing to constantly call everyone "sonny" as he tells his tales from the 60's. We might be the only "real" people he talks to anymore besides his at-home nurse, Mrs B1 and Archie Bunker when All in the Family comes on.

[Bengals1]

It's ok Jmble, B1 is most frequently associated with the saying "pot calling the kettle black". I chalk it up to his age and needing to constantly call everyone "sonny" as he tells his tales from the 60's. We might be the only "real" people he talks to anymore besides his at-home nurse, Mrs B1 and Archie Bunker when All in the Family comes on.

Well.....there is a Meathead on this site.....