Bengals fans are among the NFL’s most tortured fanbases

Probably because there is not much left to talk about before the season starts, Yahoo! Sports decided to rank all 32 NFL teams in one of the least desirable power rankings possible: the most tortured fan base.

The Bengals definitely deserve a spot on this list. After suffering through 16 years of Marvin Lewis, watching Mike Brown live up to his reputation as a cheap owner, witnessing every single first round draft pick get injured during their rookie seasons, and seeing the Bengals extend head-scratching deals to guys like Bobby Hart, the Bengals fan base is not for the faint of heart.

When all is said and done, the Bengals fell to number six, up three spots from a year ago.

The Giants scored first on the list, but its hard to feel bad for a team that has hoisted two Lombardi Trophies in the last 10 seasons.

Here’s what Yahoo! said:

There’s a whole coterie of also-ran teams that we can’t really put on this list because, well, they haven’t really had much of a taste of sustained success — the Titans, the Cardinals, the Jaguars, and so on. The Bengals don’t get to hide in the weeds with that crew. Their last seven visits to the playoffs have been one-and-done. Their last victory in the postseason came against a team that no longer exists in the same town or by the same name, the Houston Oilers. Fans have tuned out — Cincinnati had the lowest average attendance last year of the 31 teams that don’t play in soccer stadiums — but they deserve better than this orange clown show.

Not only is the Bengals fan base tortured by the Bengals’ playoff drought, but also by the media bringing it up at every opportunity.

Over the past few months, we have blamed the media for not paying attention to Cincinnati this offseason. Usually, that’s a bad thing as they usually make uninformed, negative, and often untrue statements about the Bengals.

This time, however, if they had made a truly informed decision, the Bengals probably would have been higher on this list.