Bengals try their luck at this playoff thing
CINCINNATI – For nine excruciating years, offensive tackle Willie Anderson went home in January, fired up the grill, watched the NFL playoffs and fantasized about getting there someday.
Turns out, fantasy is nothing like reality.
The Cincinnati Bengals are back in the playoffs for the first time in 15 years, feeling wholly out of place. Not even the weather is following the script – above-average temperatures leading up to today’s first-round game against Pittsburgh.
“It’s a new feeling for us,” said Anderson, who has lost 99 games in 10 Cincinnati seasons. “I always thought it would be freezing and zero degrees right now. That’s how I always pictured the week of a playoff game in Cincinnati.”
Their fans did, too. After 15 years without so much as one winning record, they were convinced that someplace would have to freeze over before the Bengals made the playoffs. When they finally made it, they got another surreal surprise.
The one team that dominated the Bengals at Paul Brown Stadium this season is coming back, looking to do it again. The Steelers (11-5) had some of their best moments during a 27-13 victory on Oct. 23 – a season-high 221 yards on the ground, an emphatic win over an upstart rival.
The Bengals won a 38-31 shootout in Pittsburgh on Dec. 4 – Ben Roethlisberger’s first game back from injuries – to essentially win the AFC North title. They even crowed a little bit afterward about how the Steelers were as yesterday as black-and-white television.
The Bengals never thought they’d be playing them again so soon, with so much at stake – and with so much black-and-gold motivation to make them pay.
Only 13 Bengals have been to the playoffs, all with other teams. The rest have to learn the hard way.
“We’ve never been in this situation, a lot of guys on the team,” receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh said. “I don’t know how I’m going to react, how I’m going to feel lining up in warmups and stretching.”
Not the Steelers. Been there, won that.
Forty of them have been to the playoffs as Steelers, so they know what it’s all about. Now, Carson Palmer gets to find out what playoff pressure is all about. The Bengals quarterback made the Pro Bowl in only his second season as a starter, leading the NFL with 32 touchdown passes and a 67.8 percent completion rate.
“You get the goose bumps going into this week on Monday and Tuesday,” Palmer said. “You realize how big of a game it is and how big it is for this city and this organization.”