The Bengals avoid joining the Browns and Lions as winless teams

It took until Week 13, but the 2019 Cincinnati Bengals are no longer winless, as they defeated the New York Jets at home to avoid going 0-for the season.

For the first time since late last season, the Cincinnati Bengals can put a victory in the win column. After deciding that Ryan Finley was no longer even the short-term answer at quarterback, Cincinnati gets a big first win of the season with long-time starter Andy Dalton back under center.

After getting benched on his birthday a few weeks back, Dalton did not disappoint in a game that nobody outside of the Queen City and Queens was watching. Cincinnati went out and played some competent football by controlling the New York Jets all afternoon. The Bengals improve to 1-11 on the year, while New York falls to 4-8.

Cincinnati may not end up getting the No. 1 overall pick after all, as this win raises the bar of mediocrity up just one victory. Two-win teams and three-win clubs are still technically alive for the No. 1 overall pick with the Bengals’ first win of the season. Clearly, Dalton doesn’t want Joe Burrow of the LSU Tigers to take his starting job like Finley attempted to do for a few weeks.

Though the Bengals are still the worst team in football, even the losers get lucky sometimes. Cincinnati avoids joining the not-loveable losers club with the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the 2008 Detroit Lions and the 2016 Cleveland Browns. While the Bengals are still on pace for the worst season in franchise history, at least Cincinnati won’t go 0-for the 2019 NFL season.

Sunday marks the first win of the Zac Taylor era in Cincinnati. People were starting to forget that this poor guy had yet to win a football game during his first year leading a club. He was seriously channeling his inner John McKay, who had previous football success in Los Angeles before becoming rudely welcomed to the NFL. Tonight, Taylor and the Bengals can celebrate.

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While it is comical to see a professional football team lose every game in a season, at its core, it’s just sad. Unless you happen to be a completely incompetent mess, no team deserves to go 0-16. Cincinnati doesn’t do anything well, but getting its first victory on the first day of the last month of the year just shows that the Bengals haven’t given up just yet. They are still playing hard in 2019.