The Cincinnati Bengals will play the Los Angeles Rams to decide Super Bowl LVI at the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. The season-deciding match will be played on the 13th of February and will be watched by a record audience. Over 100,000 fans will pack into the arena to catch a glimpse of history being made, with millions more worldwide following the match on television, radio and legal live streaming apps.
The Bengals enter the biggest match in their rich history as the underdogs, written off by NFL betting traders, former players, and pundits alike. All the talk pre-match has focussed on the strengths and skills of the Rams, and the odds offered at some of the more famous online sportsbooks would suggest Cincinnati are simply here to make up the numbers.
Any football lover or general sports fan with knowledge of where the Bengals have come from knows this is an underdog with teeth. Their bite is much worse than their bark. This season’s appearance at the Super Bowl is no flash in the pan success, and it’s no freak sporting luck. Instead, it’s the product of years of careful planning, investment, and coaching, making sure that the team that eventually made it to the grand stage were ready for the challenge.
Can the Bengals win the Super Bowl? Of course. Will the Bengals win the Super Bowl? The more we learn about this fearless team, the easier it is to get excited about their chances.
Bengals Rise to the top
It may seem difficult to believe as the team puts the finishing touches to their Super Bowl LVI preparations, but just a few years ago, Cincinnati making it to the final match of the season would have been unthinkable. To suggest the Bengals were good enough to be crowned the best team in American Football would have seen you laughed out of any sports bar. But that long shot has come good, and this ambitious squad of players stand on the edge of greatness.
Their story is the stuff of a Hollywood scriptwriter’s dream. It’s so close to fantasy that if we hadn’t tracked their rise for ourselves, we would have written this one off as far-fetched, to put it as politely as possible. The reason for that is that the Bengals were the worst team in the NFL three years ago, rooted to the foot of the table and going nowhere fast. They returned form of just two wins in their 16 games before exiting at the first opportunity in embarrassment. The club’s long-suffering fans were left feeling let down, betrayed, and quickly running out of patience.
Fast forward to 2022 and how things have changed. In fact, the fortunes of the Bengals couldn’t be any different to they were a couple of years ago when the side was at their lowest. Now the good times are here. Supporters, coaches, players, and everyone connected to the team aren’t about to let the sportswriters and bookies tell them they are out of their depth.
This is a team that has come up the hard way, learning lessons, suffering heavy defeats, and being eliminated from the season. They have taken all the hits square on the chin and keep coming back for more. Now the Bengals look set to get their reward, the glory they have worked so hard to achieve. They’re not about to let this opportunity slip through their hands.
Burrow is the main man
The trail to Inglewood has been a long one. It has been a team effort in every sense of the work, with the players putting their bodies on the line for the cause. One player has stood out against all else, and that is star quarterback Joe Burrow. He has, at times, been behind everything good about the Bengals’ play this season, and his teammates owe him big time for helping drive the team to the biggest match of the season.
It may be only his second year as a starting quarterback, but his employers already can’t imagine life without him. The all-action quarterback is out to join an exclusive list of players that have won the Super Bowl in only their second campaign. The Vince Lombardi trophy is now within touching distance, and a growing number of neutrals are lending their support to the Bengals.