Cincinnati Bengals | History, Notable Players, & Facts | Britannica

Founding and first decades

The Bengals joined the American Football League (AFL) as an expansion team in 1968. Paul Brown, who had become one of the most respected coaches in the game at the helm of the Cleveland Browns, was one of the franchise’s founders and its first head coach. Cincinnati was a member of the AFL for just two seasons before the league merged with the NFL in 1970.

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The Bengals’ maiden year in the NFL saw the team post its first winning record and earn a playoff spot as the AFC Central champion. That same year, the team began to play in Riverfront Stadium, a multipurpose venue they would share with baseball’s Cincinnati Reds for the following 30 years. In 1972 the Bengals turned their offense over to second-year quarterback Ken Anderson (from tiny Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois), who would go on to lead the team for over a decade and set numerous franchise passing records. The Bengals made two more playoff appearances in the 1970s, but they failed to win their first contest on each occasion.

Brown resigned as head coach after the 1975 season, but he stayed on as team president until his death in 1991. One of Brown’s most important personnel moves came in 1980 when he drafted tackle Anthony Muñoz, who is considered one of the greatest offensive linemen in football history; Muñoz anchored the Bengals’ line for 13 seasons. In 1981 the Bengals won a conference-best 12 regular-season games and had their first two postseason wins to advance to Super Bowl XVI the following January, where they lost to the San Francisco 49ers. Cincinnati returned to the playoffs after the strike-shortened 1982 season but lost in their opening-round postseason game.

In 1984 Sam Wyche became the Bengals’ head coach, and a year later Anderson ceded Cincinnati’s starting quarterback role to Boomer Esiason. In 1988 an Esiason-led Bengals team tied the Buffalo Bills for the best record in the AFC by going 12–4. After defeating the Bills in the AFC championship game, the Bengals squared off against the 49ers in the Super Bowl for a second time and were again denied a championship; San Francisco quarterback Joe Montana led his team to a last-minute 20–16 victory.