I have always been more than just a casual Bengals fan as I think as I got older I started getting into it even more. There is a lot available on the internet to take in and the niche product like the Cincinnati Bengals even has a ton of options for good information. A question that I here often is where do you go to get your Bengals news? I am an equal opportunity promoter and not competing for clicks with other blogs and sites. The more content on the Bengals out there the better and I love what a lot of people are doing on the internet. So I thought about it, what is my Bengals 101 starter pack for those that want to get deeper into their fanhood? So here is what I recommend:
CincyJungle.com – These guys are the best in the biz and have great content, gold standard. They have a lot of writers and good analysis on real football stuff. I probably visit CincyJungle five times a day to see what’s going on.
BengalsUK.wordpress.com – This is a bunch of British blokes that are huge Bengal fans and I just recently discovered them. I even started listening to their podcast and they are legit fans. It’s hard to take in the British accent talking about American football but they are fantastic and I am glad to have run across them. They are not breaking stories but they do get interviews and have a similar feel to my blog.
Bleacher Report – They often have good stories and can break news. They often are covering the same stuff as everyone once a story is out but they take a non-fans perspective so you get a national media balanced approach to it.
ProFootballTalk.com – This is all of the breaking news that is on the internet that Twitter isn’t breaking. You get a lot more content about the rest of the league but they do a great job of getting info out there.
StripeHype.com – Honestly this is not a daily hit for me for content but I see the articles on Twitter mostly and they put out some good stories. Their website is nicely designed and they are certainly in the top tier group of the Bengals blog community.
LockedonBengals – This is a podcast (because everyone has one now) and really good. The tag team of James Rapien and Joe Goodberry was awesome but then Rapien moved to Cleveland and Jake Liscow took over. Recently Goodberry signed off to focus on family and Rapien came back on the scene. No disrespect to Liscow but the Goodberry/Rapien tandem was top notch but these guys are worth the listen.
SI.com – James Rapien writes for them so the best thing you can do is just follow him on Twitter. He puts out good content and has access.
BengalsWire.usatoday.com – Good content and over the past 6 months they have been more timely about getting stories up. I like their take and they are a good compliment to the rest of the community.
Twitter – Most people have Twitter so if you really want to dive in start following people that really advertise themselves as diehards. These guys are retweeting and commenting on everything so you start seeing a ton of content. In my experience there is a small tight community of 15-20 people that all kind of know each other and put out the Bengals stories, hype and information. It’s a fun group and hopefully I am accepted into the brotherhood soon.
The bottom line is that there are a lot of really good options out there. So if you are jumping on the Burrow Bandwagon then that’s cool, welcome. You will find all of us accepting and critical but we are all just hoping for that one moment when we see the Bengals hoist that Lombardi trophy. We are in this together, WHODEY!