CINCINNATI BENGALS HEAD TO THE SUPERBOWL

Getting to the Super Bowl isn’t easy, as the Detroit Lions, Jacksonville Jaguars, Miami Dolphins, Houston Texas, and New York Giants and Jets, among others, can attest.

But the Cincinnati Bengals found a way by drafting well, assembling a young group of players, finally winning their American Football Conference championship, and just like that, landing on the big stage for the first time in 33 years. Twice they have gotten there and twice they have lost.

But this time, they can point to second-year starting quarterback Joe Burrow, Heisman Trophy winner and Player of the Year while playing for Louisiana State after spending one year at Ohio State. Despite having to escape from a rush of sacks, he has handled the situation well, has rallied Cincinnati around him, and the confidence was already there.

At this time two years ago, these Bengals were downright dreadful. To break it down, they were no doubt team in the National Football League, coming off a 2-14 campaign with a first-year head coach, and facing a franchise-shaping decision of who to take with the No. 1 pick in the draft.

Did that work out well? It was super.

Drafting Burrow brought a quick change. So did a roster of promising young talent mixed with savvy veterans, not nearly as many brought in by the Los Angeles Rams, like, for instance, quarterback Matthew Stafford, wide receiver Odell Beckham, defensive end Van Miller, and already with one of the game’s top pass catchers and breakaway runners in Copper Kupp, but enough to fill key spots.

And for LA, Kupp and Beckham have been Stafford’s top targets, plus his years of generating the offense for the Lions gave the Rams a solid mixed option to go with an already quality defense and the addition of more recognized defenders.

Meanwhile, the Bengals were a franchise that were not-so-affectionately called the “Bungels” for decades, but Burrow frowns on that, said the past is the past and now is now, and credits the way this team came together.

“I think,” he said, “if you would have told me coming into the league, that when I got drafted (in 2020), that we would be here this year, it would be a shock. Now I’m not surprised, now I can hardly wait to take the field Sunday.”

The confidence he shows has spread its way around.

Said head coach Zac Taylor following the 27-24 AFC comeback championship thriller over the 2nd-seeded Chiefs in Kansas City: “We believed from the get-go whether people believed in us or not, we did.”

But there weren’t that many believers when Cincinnati had a rough initial season under Taylor, when Burrow’s season was cut short by a knee injury in week 11. The Bengals went 4-11-1, last in their division for the third straight year.

New faces, same ol’ results for the Bengals and their fans who are certainly a case study in handling frustration?

But not this time, maybe their fans were hopeful of a new look, but when it came down to the disappointed franchise, it knew it needed to start building a solid foundation starting with the coach and quarterback, and supported by an influx of draft picks and free agents who have become key starters.

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“I am so happy for the city of Cincinnati,” Taylor said. “They have waited for this moment. They have supported us waiting for this moment.”

Wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase was reunited with Burrow, his teammate from LSU, when he was selected in the fist round, kicker Evan McPherson went in the fifth round, a move that drew some criticism but now looks super as he’s been 12-for-12 on postseason field goals.

Among the free agent, good pickups in defensive end Trey Hendrickson and cornerbacks Chidobe Awuzie, Eli Apple and Mike Hilton as all became starters.

Now the 4th-seeded Bengals hit the road again, this time at the SoFi Stadium of the same 4th-seeded Rams in Inglewood. They will be about a 5-point underdog, but it’s nothing new as the Rams try to follow last year’s first-ever Super Bowl win by the home team.

Now Cincinnati opened the playoffs at home before a packed house and were underdogs to the 5th-seeded Las Vegas Raiders, then hit the road as underdogs versus the AFC top-seeded Tennessee Titans, and were the underdog against Kansas City, but it matters little when you win.

But others are not following the same road. The Jets have the league’s longest active playoff drought at 11 seasons. The Jaguars are making the No. 1 pick for the second straight year. And those Giants, Lions, Texans and Dolphins have been franchises influx for much of the past few years.

And from this list, the Jets and Giants are not in another world, just an extra state, for they wear New York on their uniforms, but play at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.

Nothing new, just fans in the Garden State and Empire State who have never accepted this after the Jets moved from Shea Stadium in Queens and the Giants from Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.