We still think that it's terrible that the Cincinnati Bengals franchise doesn't do a better job honoring their best players with a Ring of Honor, so to speak. Why isn't Anthony Munoz's portrait pained into the South Endzone, I'll never know. Why isn't Willie Anderson's big awesome face at the 50-yard line? No one listens to me. Instead, Bengals.com has announced a Virtual Hall of Fame.
Starting February 2, ending February 28, "fans can vote for 10 of 32 names that are multiple Pro Bowl players, career record-holders or Super Bowl head coaches, or five at-large selections." In April, voting resumes eliminating the ten finalists to three joining Anthony Munoz and Paul Brown in the first class of the Bengals.com Virtual Hall of Fame. It might not be the Ring of Honor, or anything like the Reds Hall of Fame, but it's something. Past Bengals players, the great ones, are unfairly given a bad stigma having played with an organization that many deem unworthy in historical discussions considering their run since the early 90s. Having no Super Bowl wins isn't helpful, but we hardly think that a great career is simply defined by one game -- or else
The one compliment I'll always give Bengals.com is that there's a plethora of information released at such a rate that a river rages while other NFL teams have websites that publish information like a trickle from creaks deep inside dark forests -- sorry, been watching Lord of the Rings again. Leading up to the 2007 season, Bengals.com ran a series that cumulated the Top 40 moments in Bengals history. I know the pulse of others, but I've said this before, it's about the information; not the inability for some to digest it.