If the men of ’88 were your parents’ Bengals, then the ’05 Bengals are yours.
“I would come home and see people wearing Bengals jerseys. I hadn’t seen that before,” is how T.J. Houshmandzadeh recalls his fifth NFL season. “That was the year that kind of made the Bengals an official household team. Like they were when they had Ickey Woods and stuff like that.”
Ten years later and your Bengals are all grown up now. More mature. More business-like. They gather in head coach Marvin Lewis’ conference rooms next week to start training camp and another quest for post-season success, a crusade their rollicking and swashbuckling ‘05 descendants began in characteristic dramatic fashion when they broke a drought of 14 straight winless seasons in a Wild Card Game that unfolded like a miniseries instead of a playoff game.