There’s no denying the Cincinnati Bengals are one of the premiere franchises in the NFL these days. After all, in just the third season with Joe Burrow under center, the Bengals are playing in a second-consecutive AFC Championship game, aiming to finally get over the hump of winning the Lombardi Trophy. Still, the team is new to this type of success, and the roster as a whole is relatively young.
And so, it’s not just the production on the field, or Burrow’s fashion sense, that lead to the Bengals staying within the mainstream conversation of the league. The team as a whole had a strong negative reaction to the league’s approach to the location of playoff games it would compete in potentially putting the Bengals at a disadvantage, whether playing the Ravens on the road despite being AFC North champs or the potential for a neutral site conference game.