It’s a Bengals Thanksgiving. Who’s had enough? Who wants more?

The Cincinnati Bengals are back from their bye. Are you grateful to see them again? (Mike Bass Photo)

By Mike Bass
mbass@mikebasscoaching.com

Sometimes you want to escape to the Bengals. I felt like that during the run-up to the election.  

Sometimes you want to escape from the Bengals. I felt like that heading into the bye week.

Sure, these cliffhangers are thrilling, but can’t the other team go over the edge once in a while? Or even once? 

The Bengals can’t beat anyone with a winning record. They erase a 21-point Chargers deficit and still collapse in the end. How can this happen? How can they be 4-7? How do you keep stomaching this? How do you make sense of this when you have to face it every week?

You needed time to process this. You got a bye.

The day after Los Angeles 34, Cincinnati 27, I asked on X how you will heal and recharge over the break.

“Just avoid all the noise and enjoy watching other games for at least a week,” @BengalsMike wrote, “just tired of all the arguments and personal attacks and hate over just a game.”

“Exactly,” @BengalsNation8 added. “Will be nice not to stress on a Sunday [or Thursday] for once.”

Stress can twist you into feeling powerless or angry, stuck or unsteady, blocked from seeing clearly or recognizing the bigger picture. It is normal. The same goes for the rest of your life. When the situation feels personal, the more prone you are to react emotionally instead of act intentionally – and, yes, the Bengals are personal to you.

Sometimes the best first step is away from the stress.

“Still watch football, be sad I don’t get to watch our team, as frustrating as the season has been for us, it’s even more so for them!” @JamieMortonLMT wrote. “I’ve been watching @Bengals since I was born [legit have a picture watching with my dad as a newborn]. Until the math won’t math, I have hope!”

“Bitch and complain about the current state of the team and then get excited to see all my friends again in 2 weeks,” @andhesonit51 wrote.

What better counter for stress than gratitude to be back among your friends and with your team?

And what better time for it than Thanksgiving Week?

* * * * *

Gratitude is powerful.

Gratitude is not delusional.

Gratitude is not thanking the Bengals for burying themselves and your expectations, but gratitude is reminding you what the Bengals mean to you, beyond their record, and the opportunities still ahead.

Gratitude is accepting these are the Bengals, still 4-7, with six games left, and you get to choose how to see and deal with them every game and the rest of the way.

I circled back Monday to Bengals fans and simply asked on X what you are grateful for, heading into Thanksgiving.

“We had our Thanksgiving here, back in October,” wrote @Truck_1_0_1_, who is from Canada, “but I'm always thankful for my family, the outdoors, my sports teams, Sega and my other hobbies that I have.”

Gratitude is filling and centering, beyond just the Bengals.

The Bengals are part of you. They are not you. The Bengals are part of your life. They are not your life.

The Bengals provide passion and connection. They are your joy when they win and your pain when they lose, magnified by the rate of each and by your expectations.

Last Thanksgiving, you were grieving the season-ending wrist injury to Joe Burrow. In the end, you could rationalize missing the playoffs but delight in the surprising lift understudy Jake Browning had provided. A year later, Burrow is back, having a career year by the numbers, but the Bengals are worse. Gratitude was hard a year ago, maybe harder now.

Where do you find it?

“My kids, my wife, and the fact that I was alive to see my Bengals in a Super Bowl,” @JLforemanjrAcTN wrote, “we have our ups and DOWNS but I'm grateful to be a fan of this amazing organization.”

You might disagree about the organization, but you have a right to your own gratitude, without judgment. The Super Bowl will stay with all of you forever. It is yours. The team is yours. Your gratitude goes beyond its record.

“Lucky enough to have the NFL (i)n Cincinnati, The QB and the players giving top effort, my secret inexpensive parking spot on Sundays and my fellow Bengals fans,” @ImNostraThomas wrote. “The Bengals fans here in town, throughout the Tri-state, the rest of 🇺🇸 and around the world. As a good family we may disagree or misunderstand each other at times but can come together and have each others backs when it’s needed. That’s just as a Bengal fan. As a person? My family, friends that are like family, ability to care and help them all.”

As Bengals fans, there are times some of you can turn on each other. Same with family and friends. Holidays can be a relative stress-pool. The dinner table can be the actual-reality version of a social-media platform. If there is a way to ease your own tension, lean into it. If you have to walk away, even for a few minutes for a pretend bathroom break, why not? If gratitude works, why not try it?

The bye week is your extended bathroom break.

Maybe you find gratitude in facing it with humor.

“That the Bengals didn't lose this week,” @Bengals_Captain wrote.

You can find gratitude in all kinds of ways.

“Thankful for my family, health and happiness. 🤍” @JNJournalist wrote. “Also, thankful for the tiniest bit of playoff % we are still hanging onto.”

You can find gratitude in saying there’s a chance.

It isn’t dumb. It isn’t dumber. It is true.

* * * * *

 The season resumes Sunday against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Cincinnati is favored.

How does that keep happening, too?

You used to accuse oddsmakers of disrespecting the Bengals. With money on the line, this isn’t a makeup call. One of these weeks, maybe it will be the right one.

Pittsburgh just lost to a bad Cleveland team that now is only a game behind the Bengals. The NFL thinks so poorly of the Bengals-Browns matchup next month that the game just became the first ever flexed out of a Thursday night.

That will be Cincinnati’s third straight game against opponents with losing records, following the Steelers game. Maybe it will mean more than the league anticipates. If the Bengals can beat Pittsburgh, maybe they can go one of those runs like in 2021 and 2022. They might need to win out to make the playoffs.

You can go there in your head, if you’d like.

You can be grateful for the possibility.

Or you can just take a breath and enjoy the Bengals being back playing football again. That is where I am now.

I feel this way after – dare I say it – a good bye.

Or let’s just say I am grateful for the break.

And, as ever, grateful for you.

Happy Thanksgiving!