House Bengals
“The Stripes Do Not Fade”
- Lands
- Cincinnati
- Seat
- Paycor Stadium — the Jungle
- Sigil
- Black stripes on burning orange
- Allegiance
- AFC North
- Standing
- The Contested Middle · 6-11 last season
The Wound
This house has never won. Not once. It has been to the final field three times and lost all three, the most recent in February 2022 by three points, with a lord who had been in the league two years and looked like the future of the sport.
Then the future kept getting hurt. That is the Cincinnati wound — not defeat exactly, but the specific torture of a house that has the pieces and cannot keep them upright.
The Lord
Joe Burrow. Cool to the point of insolence, plainly great, and made of something more fragile than this house can afford. When he plays a full season they are dangerous. He has not often played a full season.
The Knights
- Dexter Lawrence — acquired from New York, an immovable object for a house that has spent years being moved.
Ancient Grudges
- House Steelers, House Ravens. Cincinnati is the youngest sibling in the most brutal division in the realm and has been treated accordingly for fifty years.
What Changed This Spring
They finally spent on the Watch — Lawrence by trade, Boye Mafe for sixty million, Bryan Cook, plus an extension for Orlando Brown to keep the lord upright. Six wins last year. This is a house that has decided the problem was never the offense.
Prophecy
That the lord stays standing for seventeen games. That’s all. That’s the whole prophecy.
Dispatches — House Bengals
No dispatches yet for this house.