It only took a split second in the Bengals playoff game against the Steelers to change the complexion of a long standing rivalry. When Carson Palmer went down with an injury on the second offensive play of the game, Bengal fans took on a new attitude towards the Pittsburgh Steelers and their fans.You could feel it in the air after the conclusion of the 31-17 loss to the Steelers. This wasn’t just a rivalry game anymore, likened to that of the Browns and Ravens. This game for years to come had taken on a whole new meaning.
In the Bengals’ first playoff game in fifteen years, the Steelers had taken out Cincinnati’s golden boy in the opening stages, dooming the Bengals to a loss.
The Bengals and Steelers had been rivals throughout the Steelers’ heyday in the 70s and the Bengals’ glory years of the 80s. Frequently one team would end the other’s championship dreams late in the season. With the Bengals’ decline in the 90s, the rivalry fell by the wayside.
It’s only in the past three years, with the resurgence of Marvin Lewis’s Bengals, that this game has actually meant something.
One caller to an afternoon sports talk show said, “We need to go out and sign headhunters and enforcers; we need to give the Steelers a taste of their own medicine.”
This attitude has been echoed all over the Internet, newspapers, and radio stations. You can see it in the face of anyone wearing the Who-Dey apparel. Bengal fans have lost their inferiority complex that plagued them for the better part of two decades. Not only do they want to beat the Steelers; they want to humiliate them.
The Steelers and Bengals appear to have cemented themselves as the top two teams in the AFC North for years to come. These games in the future won’t just be for the division but for the bragging rights of a renewed and heated rivalry.
If the Bengals have half the passion that their fans are displaying, this rivalry has all the makings of World War III every time these two enemies square off on the field.