Nobody wants to watch the Bengals play football

    Jay Busbee

    We’re at the point in the season where you pretty much know what you’ve got in your football team, and if you’re a fan of the Cincinnati Bengals, the answer is: not much.

    The Bengals entered Sunday 0-11, two games ahead of the Redskins and Dolphins in the Screw It for Tua or Failin’ for Jalen or whatever we’re calling the race for the No. 1 seed in the NFL draft this year. Strangely enough, in one of the winnable games still on the Bengals’ schedule, it appears that Cincinnati fans have already begun their offseason plans:

    The Jets were the foe during the last one of these “is-anyone-watching-this-game?” stories, the “Sell the team!” game at Washington’s FedEx Field two weeks back. We can draw two conclusions from that: First, the Jets aren’t exactly a road draw these days, and, second, the Jets have played in front of a combined 37 people over those past two weeks.

    This will be one of those stadium photos that the usual bad-faith types trot out to show the NFL is “dying” or whatever, but the simple truth is that it’s tough to blame Bengals fans for turning their backs on this winless, hapless team. The whole “support-your-team-through-good-times-and-bad” maxim wears thin when there’s nothing but bad times both ahead and behind.

    Tickets for this game were going for as low as $9 at kickoff, and that might be overpriced.

    We know how you feel, Andy. (Photo by Bryan Woolston/Getty Images)

    Still, there were highlights. We’re not saying this is a magnificent game or anything, but it did feature Andy Dalton throwing his 198th touchdown pass for the Bengals, setting a franchise record. Dalton may not be around Cincinnati next year, but at least he’s got that memory, and so do a couple dozen fans.

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    Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.

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