History
When Paul Brown was fired by the Cleveland Browns after the 1962 season, the general belief was that his unbending autocratic ways just couldn't work in the NFL of the 1960s. He was considered to be retired and was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1967.
Before his induction, though, the American Football League granted a franchise to a Cincinnati ownership group led by Brown. The team was to begin play in the 1968 season. Fans were asked to suggest a name; the most popular was the Buckeyes, but that was turned down to avoid confusion with the Ohio State football team. Brown and his partners finally decided on Bengals, which had been the nickname of a Cincinnati team that played in former American Football Leagues in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
With Brown serving as general manager and head coach, the Bengals had two losing seasons in the AFL. In 1970, the league merged with the NFL and Cincinnati not only had a winning season, at 8-6, but won the AFC Central Division title, becoming the first expansion team to reach the playoffs in just its third year.
In the early 1970s, Brown and assistant coach Bill Walsh developed an attack that was to become known as the West Coast Offense. The offense was created partly as a response to the increasing use of zone defenses among NFL teams and partly to use the talents of Ken Anderson, a mobile quarterback who was a very accurate passer in the short to medium range. It was really an adaptation and extension of the "pass and trap" offense Brown had developed in the late 1940s with the Cleveland Browns.
Anderson, the first-round draft choice of the Bengals in 1971, was the AFC's passing leader four times in his 16-year career.
The Bengals won another division titles under Brown, in 1973, and they made the playoffs as a wildcard team in 1975, but they lost in the first round both years. Brown retired as coach after the 1975 season but remained as general manager. He chose line coach Bill "Tiger" Johnson as the Bengals' new head coach and Walsh left the team, eventually ending up with San Francisco 49ers, where he built a dynasty with a further refined version of West Coast Offense.
Johnson had two second-place finishes but was replaced by Homer Rice after the Bengals lost their first five games in 1978 and Rice was fired after a 4-12 record the following season. Then Forrest Gregg took over and quickly turned things around. The Bengals won the division with a 12-4 record in 1981, his second season, and beat the Buffalo Bills and San Diego Chargers to advance the Super Bowl, where they met Walsh's 49ers. The Bengals trailed, 20-0, at the half and they lost, 26-21, despite three second-half touchdowns.
Cincinnati lost in the first round after the strike-shortened 1982 season. Gregg left to become the head coach of the Green Bay Packers after a 7-9 record in 1983, when the team was devastated by injuries. Gregg's replacement was Sam Wyche, who had been passing game director for Bill Walsh in San Francisco.
Wyche's eight-year stint was a roller-coaster ride. He had three winning seasons, three losing seasons, and two seasons at .500. The highest point was the 1988 season, when the Bengals went 12-4 to take the division title and advanced to the Super Bowl again with playoff wins over the Seattle Seahawks and Buffalo Bills.
Once again, the Bengals faced Walsh and the 49ers. They held a 13-6 lead after three quarters, then retook the lead, 16-13, with 3:20 to play after San Francisco had tied it up. But the 49ers came back with an 11-play, 92-yard drive that ended with a 10-yard touchdown pass from Joe Montana to John Taylor that won the game.
After going 8-8 in 1989, the Bengals won the division title again in 1990, though they were only 9-7 that year. After beating the Houston Oilers in a wildcard game, they lost to the Los Angeles Raiders in the second round of the playofs. Then they fell all the way to 3-13 in 1991 and Wyche was replaced by Dave Shula, who at 32 was the youngest coach in the NFL and the youngest non-playing coach in league history.
Shula spent four and a half seasons guiding the Bengals without ever producing a winner. In fact, the Bengals haven't had a winning season since Paul Brown's death on Aug. 5, 1991. His son, Mike Brown, succeeded him as general manager and they Bengals have reached .500 only twice since then.