The Cincinnati Bengals have spent a lot of time as laughingstocks of the NFL, but they’ve also had some incredible seasons led by superstar players.
The franchise has had several long stretches of single-digit win seasons but has also made the Super Bowl three times.
The Bengals are once again enjoying a period of success, and quarterback Joe Burrow is already threatening to make his way onto this list of the five best Bengals players of all time.
However, until Burrow officially gets there, only one player here comes from the 21st century.
Cincinnati got a professional football franchise in 1968, joining the AFL two seasons before the NFL-AFL merger. Former Cleveland Browns head coach Paul Brown started the franchise and was the first head coach and passed the team onto his son Mike when he passed away in 1991.
While a franchise being founded by a coach and not a business tycoon and keeping it in the same family for more than half a century is cool, it is also why the team operates on a shoestring budget at times and suffers long bouts of losing.
Still, there have been some great players who played in Cincinnati, and we rank the best five here.