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It gets worse every year in this jungle
"Rank" being the operative word.
In a league that's set up so that the poor will inherit the earth and at least contend eventually, the Bengals keep finding ways to get stomped into the ground season after season after season.
The Bengals haven't had a winning record since 1990, when they managed to nudge themselves over .500 at 9-7. That's also the last season the Bengals qualified for the playoffs (8-8 wasn't good enough in 1996, although such a record may win the AFC North Division this season), making the Bengals the only non-expansion team since then not to sniff the postseason at least once in that span.
Coaches have come and gone, from Sam Wyche to David Shula to Bruce Coslet to Dick LeBeau. The common thread is that all have lost at least 10 games in a season.
Quarterbacks come and go, three different starters this season alone (Gus Frerotte, Akili Smith and Jon Kitna) and five different opening-day arms over the past five seasons (Neil O'Donnell, Jeff Blake, Smith, Kitna and Frerotte).
The only constant is losing.
A spectacular, new stadium hasn't helped.
A regular position at the top end of the draft hasn't gleaned talent as much as it has embarrassment (David Klingler, sixth overall in 1992; Ki-Jana Carter, first in 1995; Smith, third in 1999; Peter Warrick, fourth in 2000).
The Bengals have tried everything but a team psychologist.
LeBeau knows even that probably wouldn't make a difference.
"I'm not smart enough to listen to a psychologist," LeBeau said. "I suppose he would help me a great deal, but I'm just going to keep firing away with my guys and playing as hard as we can."
That hasn't worked nearly often enough since LeBeau replaced Coslet three games into the 2000 season. The Bengals' latest 0-fer start (they're 0-5 heading into Sunday's game against the Steelers after opening 0-8 in 1991, 0-10 in 1993 and 0-8 in 1994) has LeBeau grilling on the hot seat. LeBeau has 44 seasons in the NFL counting this one and still he's found himself fielding questions about whether he should be asked to resign of late, and owner Mike Brown has found himself denying reports he's already identified LeBeau's replacement and refusing to address rumors that LeBeau will be fired should the Bengals fall to 0-6 on Sunday.
LeBeau is too good a coach and too fine a human being to have to endure such misery, but that's what happens when a decade-plus of absolute ineptitude produces an NFL-worst record of 53-128 since 1990.
Even a coach as astute as LeBeau hasn't been able to alter what must be accepted by now as the inevitable.
"The head coach had had plenty of blame in his life," he said. "I guess a little bit more will not stop us. We will keep swinging."
And keep fighting.
But what the Bengals must fight most of all as the losses continue to mount is being the Bengals.
And like just about everything else associated with this franchise, it's a losing battle.
"The answer to that is, don't lose," LeBeau said. "It's probably easier for me than many (to actually envision the Bengals not losing) because I have been part of this franchise when it was very successful. I have been to three Super Bowls, one with the Steelers and two with the Bengals, so I know we can win."
No matter how consistently the Bengals fail to.
"Nothing succeeds like success," LeBeau said. "You have to have some success, and then things have a way of working out. We obviously have not started the way we wanted to. We are in the process of getting it turned around.
"The bottom line is everybody has to take their game to the level that enables you to be competitive and successful. It's never one player, it's never one group of players and it's never one possession. It's the whole thing. Anyone who tells you differently, I don't think is accurate."
Either that, or they've never been to Cincinnati.
