Bass: This is the way of the Bengals. Why fight it?
These are your Bengals. They are not frontrunners. They are fashionably late.
What if that is their identity?
What if you embrace that identity?
What if success is better after adversity?
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“The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.”
Moliere
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The Bengals are a great song that starts slowly. They are “Stairway to Heaven.” They take a sad song and make it better. They are “Hey Jude.”
Who wouldn’t rather start fast? The NFL is a weekly stress test, but the results amplify at first. Open successfully, and the world is your stage. Open poorly, and you are the biggest flop since “The Moose Murders” on Broadway.
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The Bengals are a combined 1-7 in the opening two weeks of the Joe Burrow Era. (Insert retching here.) You can obsess about the record, but what if you consider the context?
What if this is the Bengals’ pathway to success?
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“There is no success without hardship.”
– Sophocles
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Hardship means adjusting. Failure means learning. Perfect is an illusion. The 1972 Miami Dolphins are the only team to go undefeated through the Super Bowl, but lost Hall of Fame quarterback Bob Griese in Game 6. The wire-to-wire Reds started 33-12, but went 58-59 the rest of the way before regrouping to win the 1990 World Series.
Sure, it’s nice to play with a lead.
That’s not the Bengals.
They spend their margin for error early. Burrow is always recovering from something. Are you ready for takeoff?
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“If at first you don’t succeed, then skydiving definitely isn’t for you.”
– Steven Wright
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If you demand instant gratification, then the Bengals were not for you. But what if you look at the Bengals differently? What if overcoming adversity is the Bengals’ superpower? What if it makes them stronger and ultimately better?
What if you just didn’t know how to take them?
In 2021, they overcame an uneven start, a midseason blip and a history of misery to reach the Super Bowl. Remember how it felt to defy expectations, to win that first playoff game, to go from “Why Not Us?” to “This is Us”?
You were ecstatic.
In 2022, they overcame 0-2, a Halloween nightmare in Cleveland, a Monday Night trauma against Buffalo and a face-slapping playoff scenario to reach the AFC title game.
You were ... unhappy.
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Expectations were so high that every loss felt like an affront and no win felt like enough. Your perceptions might have left you feeling disrespected and entitled, hosed and on edge, a victim. The Bengals catapulted from 4-4 to a team-record 10 straight wins, but did you bask in any of that? Losing to the Chiefs stunk, but look at what you lost along the way. You are human. You were not used to this.
This adapting stuff is hard.
Just look at the Bengals.
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“Victory is sweetest when you’ve known defeat.”
– Malcolm Forbes
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For 30 years, you knew your identity as a Bengals fan to be one of perseverance and hope, commiseration and faith, assuming crash positions. It helped you survive.
The Super Bowl season meant more to you because of all you endured to get there, but you have been searching for a new identity ever since then. Just when you thought you had the Bengals figured out, they start 0-2 again, Burrow is hurting, 0-2 becomes 1-3, and what do you do?
What if the win Sunday showed you the way?
What if everything you went through is exactly what you needed to get through to get there?
Same as the Bengals.
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“This is the way.”
– The Mandalorian
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Your evolution in Bengaldom has left you right here, with a chance to see your team in a different way, to embrace this new world for exactly what it is, despite its discomfort ... because of its discomfort.
Lean into the discomfort. Today, discomfort can breed familiarity. Today, discomfort can breed success. Today, discomfort is struggling to beat Arizona.
“I feel like they shouldn't have had to fight so hard to beat the Cardinals,” @StevenCrowtown posted on X (ex-Twitter).
“Tell that to Dallas and San Francisco,” @BengalsMike replied. (Unlike Dallas, the Bengals beat Arizona. Like San Francisco, the Bengals pulled away in the fourth quarter.)
“They won by 14 points,” @GemCityBengal added.
This came up our weekly day-after-game X (ex-Twitter) session, when we addressed what the Bengals fighting back to win meant to you.
“Still misfiring in parts, but we got our boy back!!🔥,” @JamboDes posted with a gif of Burrow.
“I knew they'd get back on track,” @DaltonSignature posted. “Our team is warmed up and ready for the rest of the season!”
“It means,” @thewhobae posted, “a lot of us were right. 😏”
Today, 2-3 is more tolerable than 2-3 last year. Today, a flawed win beats a last-second loss. Today, Burrow does not look so limited – nor does the future.
This is the way.
You had to learn how to deal with losing and winning, with slow starts and adversity, with the Bengals as they are.
This is the way.
It elated you. It waylaid you. It rebuilt you. It humbled you. Are you ready to take the creed?
This is the way.
Today, 3-3 would be a gift entering the bye, and 2-4 would be another test, but what if you are up for it?
This is the way.
What if the stumbling makes the journey better?
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“Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.”
– Truman Capote
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Your evolution in Bengaldom can empower you.
You no longer assume 0-2 is a death sentence. When others see one foot in the grave, you see one calf on the road to recovery. All you have is now, and now is hope because Burrow is looking more like Burrow, Burrow and Chase are dynamic, the defense did enough to beat Arizona, and this is the way of Bengals football.
If you feel powerless, frustrated, angry at the slow starts and uncertainty, you are not alone. Then again, the 2015 Bengals started 8-0, got Pittsburghed again in the playoffs and left you charred outside and raw inside.
Starting fast is not the Bengals now. They finish fast. They have as many playoff wins with Burrow (five) as they had combined before him. Isn’t this way better?
The Bengals are doing what the Bengals do. They fight back. They overcome obstacles and deficits, hold on when they seem to be slipping. They beat a couple of imminently beatable opponents, the schedule is starting to get tougher – and doesn’t this sound like 2022?
This way might not work this time. You don’t know.
What if you surrender to the process, appreciate it, have faith in it, see the opportunity to repeat it and watch what happens?
What if this is the way?
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Bass: This is the way the Bengals operate, so just accept it
