The Boys are Back in Town

The boys are back in town…well some of them are.

Monday marked the first day of OTAs, and a handful of your Bengals players, old and new, showed up to get some workouts in. Among some of those in attendance were Joe Burrow, Joe Mixon, Trey Hendrickson, DJ Reader, BJ Hill, Evan McPherson, Cal Adomitis, and most of our glass-eating offensive line.

But stop right there! Yes, you don’t see Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, TB, and some of the other defensive starters. Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean anything. These first workouts are all voluntary. This is primarily meant for players to come back and begin to knock the rust off, get loose, learn a couple of new plays and hang out with the boys.

Get excited! This season is going to be, arguably, the best one yet. I know we have said that each of the last couple of years, but it all adds up this year. If nothing else makes sense, the ping pong has already commenced in the locker room. One of the fist things new tight end Irv Smith Jr noticed about the team. In multiple interviews, he just continued to mention how the energy was amazing, and it was a great team atmosphere.

Everybody continues to believe in this team and this city. The lean, mean, glass-eating machine of a center, Ted Karras was just recently on the Pat McAfee show talking about the Bengals and Joe Burrow.

“Joey B is a killer, and we are going to win one,” Karras proclaimed. “It’s all I can think about, Pat, really. They’ve never won one in Cincinnati, so, we want to be the guys to do it, and Joey B, man, he’s the guy to do it.”

USA Today

To have so many guys talking about the same thing and surrounding and rallying behind one guy so effortlessly. Sometimes things look good, but you have that gut feeling, and it doesn’t feel good.

But other times, things look good and your gut has that butterfly feeling, a good first date kind of feeling. This is what you get when you see everyone begin to show up for OTAs and hear them talk about learning new plays and getting the ping pong tournaments back in action in preparation for the new season.