The Cincinnati Bengals closed out the regular season in the best possible way, blowing out the Cleveland Browns at home to finish the year with a winning record.
Considering every team in the AFC North posted a positive record and three of those went to the playoffs — and the never-ending wave of injuries that hit the Bengals — it was a fantastic way for things to end.
Directly coming out of that game, much of the news focused on the happenings there and reactions to it — plus the future.
Here’s a look at the must-know Bengals news, notes and quotes for January 8.
A look at what fans and media had to say after the big win.
A late entry for possible locker room moment of the year with Jake Browning showing up big for his teammate and friend as Tyler Boyd gets ready for free agency.
It turns out Browning apparently lost his cool with Zac Taylor at one point, though it’s always easy to work through problems with the head coach: “Yes, I think that one of the things that is most impressive about being in this building is that Zac encourages you to be who you are. I’ve never felt the pressure to get in front of the team and be the rah-rah guy because I’m the quarterback for these last couple games. He’s, ‘Hey, be yourself,’ whether that’s how you act, how you conduct yourself in interviews or how you are outside of the facility. He says, ‘Be yourself. Protect the team, but be yourself.’ That’s not the case everywhere. There is a ton of effort and thought to intentionally create a culture where people can be themselves.”
The Bengals came very close to going winless in the AFC North for the first time since the divsiion started in 2002, which Taylor took a question about: “Our goals are to win the division and win the Super Bowl. You have to fare well in the division to get to the best opportunity to do that. It’s something we’re always aware of and we have to do a better job of that going forward. It’s a tough division, but going 1-5 in no way shape or form is acceptable for us. All we can do is control today and we found a way to get a win.”
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