CityBeat Curses Bearcats, Bengals

Everyone’s heard of the “Madden Curse,” the seemingly inevitable downfall of any athlete who appears on the cover of EA Sports’ Madden-series video game. It’s the ultimate irony that the best player one season keeps having his next season ruined. How many years in a row can a new player be the best in the game?

CityBeat didn’t mean to contribute to the unfortunate weekend performances of the Bearcat and Bengal football teams when it put them on its Dec. 16 cover. All we were saying with our story, “Reversal of Fortune,” was that both teams’ great seasons meant even more success in the future. We didn’t mean to curse anyone. So we’re sorry if we did.

We still say that UC will be back in full-force next year. The hiring of Butch Jones will at least continue the Bearcats’ recent offensive success. They’ll again compete for the Big East Championship.

As for those Bengals and their 37-0 loss on Sunday night, well, they probably didn’t really care if they lost. Marvin Lewis sat a few starters and pulled Carson Palmer in the third quarter. The Bengals are better off having lost and hosting the Jets for a rematch at Paul Brown Stadium on Saturday, rather than winning that game and hosting Houston instead. So as ugly as the loss was, it might have been better in the long run. We’ll find out on Saturday, when the Bengals host only their second playoff game since Palmer was in grade school.

The Bengals are in the playoffs and the Bearcats seem to be recovering from the coaching mess that led to the Sugar Bowl loss. We're happy that both teams are looking good and apologize for any of last week's embarrassment to which we might have contributed.