Bengals fan survey results: Signs of concern come creeping in

Welcome to Year 5 of the Bengals fan survey. What started as a fun way to engage with followers of the team and subscribers to The Athletic has transformed into a revealing peak inside the conscience of the team’s base.

Watching the rise and fall of the results to the same questions has become a fascinating milepost.

Essentially, it’s a vibes check.

This year’s results offered a few surprises (you all will never trust the offensive line, will you?) and plenty of predictable optimism (apparently a Super Bowl victory is still a lock in the next three years), there was one major trend that stood out coming off the 9-8 disappointment of 2023.

Latest Growler: The MMQB’s @ConorOrr

🔮 On his 100 bold predictions and why he buys the #Bengals structure

📈 Piece of Joe Burrow criticism that doesn’t compute

🥇 What matters in AFCN

🍨 A #GraetersWorthy statement

🎧: https://t.co/nHzkJUc5aP
📺: pic.twitter.com/WPZe7Cs7Kj

— Paul Dehner Jr. (@pauldehnerjr) July 9, 2024

Some signs of worry are creeping in.

Let’s run through the results and look at how fans feel about topics ranging from Joe Burrow’s health to the stadium deal and everything in between.

What is your confidence the Bengals are moving in the right direction?

Of all the data points gathered in this process, the most interesting to me is highlighted above: 30.5.

Fans fully believed in the moves and results made in the previous two years. Of course, they did. The club advanced to the Super Bowl and AFC Championship Game in back-to-back years. Burrow sets the club up to be in the mix for more than a decade. What’s not to believe in?

The full confidence (five) percentage was 9.6 before the breakout Super Bowl season and ascended to 72.5 as they proved not just peak level of play, but sustainability. Last year offered excuses with merit. Burrow got hurt — twice. Nothing seemed to go right. They still went 9-8.

But fans are starting to wonder. Was that just a glorious two-year apex or is this franchise truly capable of sustaining in the same way the Patriots, Chiefs and 49ers have in recent years?

I expected a drop. Losing does that. Yet, to be more than cut in half and back down to 2020 level of hope? That’s jarring. Most slipped back to the four spot and having 88.8 percent of fans landing in the top two spots is still an envious position, but apprehension is simmering.

Organizational trust levels

Duke Tobin

Zac Taylor

Ownership

These results reflect the major theme discussed in the overall confidence. Tobin and Taylor were the two big winners last year. A second consecutive deep playoff run left an effect of unquestioned trust in their process and decision-making. Last year peeled back a decent chunk of the benefit of the doubt.

Tobin took a slightly larger hit than Taylor, who like Brian Callahan finally getting his shot with Tennessee, gained some respect for the success of Jake Browning and keeping the team relevant despite losing Burrow.

Yet, there will always be gravity between their two trends. The bottom line is the Dax Hill-Jessie Bates debacle leaves a dent. Myles Murphy not playing much of a role as a first-round rookie (no matter how much stock you are buying on his future) leaves a dent. DJ Reader leaving and sounding frustrated about the process leaves a dent. None is necessarily egregious, but they add up. In Tobin’s case, they add up to 30.8 percent of his five votes disappearing.

The ownership numbers didn’t change as drastically. Over time they appear less affected by winning and losing. The opinions on the family are also solid. They are who they are, in fans’ minds. It takes a lot to change those trust levels at this point.

These numbers, specifically for a franchise that has never won a title in 56 seasons of existence, are incredibly optimistic. But why else be a fan? I respect it. That said, again, we see the doubt creeping in. What happened last year swayed 12.3 percent away from believing it will happen.

The longer it goes, the more fans wonder if it will ever happen or if this will just be the latest near-miss from great — but short-lived — eras like 1981, 1988 and 2005.

What are your realistic expectations for the 2024 Bengals?

This question spoke similarly. Yet, the wide-eyed hope and willingness of fans to scream, ‘We’re winning the Super Bowl! Who Dey!’ to anybody within earshot was cut in half. There’s obviously plenty of belief, but it’s another example of dialing back the enthusiasm surrounding the franchise’s direction.

This history served as the reason for doing the survey every year. It was the lead story. The Bengals’ main thrust amid all the change in moving on from Marvin Lewis and being more active off the field following the lead of Elizabeth and Caroline Blackburn was about feeling connected to the fans again.

They created a renaissance and woke a sleeping giant. That connection proved harder to move off just one 9-8 season. It dipped, but not nearly as much as the others listed above. That’s great news for the foundation of what they’ve built over the past five years. Fans are finding more than wins and losses connect them as customers and followers.

Do you worry at all about the team moving from Cincinnati?

Over the last three years as discussion about the future of Paycor Stadium has intensified with the end of the lease coming in 2026, the tenor around the Bengals staying in Cincinnati has not changed. This served as the major issue surrounding the original building of the stadium in the ’90s as Mike Brown flirted with a move to Baltimore. The Bengals are in a small market, one that the NFL would happily vacate for a bold move, but there’s very little concern locally that will happen.

This proves the atmosphere surrounding the team — and its importance to the community — is drastically different than it was during The Lost Decade. There’s trust that both sides are in this one together. We’ll see if this moves as the back-and-forth grows louder in these negotiations with Hamilton County, but fear does not exist.

Would you support $500-million-plus in taxpayer money for stadium renovations?

With all that said above, an interesting trend surfaced with this question. The willingness to accept taxpayer money funding most of the renovation saw growing dissent for the second straight year. The shift is small enough that it doesn’t quite register in the big picture but as the conversation becomes louder and deadlines grow closer, it’s interesting to see a growing percentage take a stance on the other side of the fence. Inevitably, even a significant chunk against such a deal won’t weigh nearly as much as templates established in other similar markets and negotiations with the county, but every data point deserves attention with all that is at stake.

How would you rate the gameday experience at Paycor Stadium last year?

I filtered out the percentage of respondents who said they didn’t attend a game and that offered the above breakdown. The Bengals’ game presentation has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years from what used to linger on embarrassing compared to shows across the league. That’s changed, specifically with electric primetime atmospheres, that have more than lived up to the NFL standard.

There’s plenty of room for growth, though, according to these respondents and it plateaued a bit last year in their eyes. With major stadium renovations still ongoing, perhaps those — and a few more wins — could send these numbers more into an area where the club hopes to live.

How would you rate the job done by the front office this offseason?

There’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that fans were as unenthused with the work done by the front office this offseason as any year in this five-year tranche outside of 2021. The good news is that 2021, in retrospect, might have been the best offseason of the lot. The Bengals drafted Ja’Marr Chase and Evan McPherson while signing Trey Hendrickson, Chidobe Awuzie, Mike Hilton and Larry Ogunjobi. You know what happened next.

The Bengals’ moves this offseason felt similar to that year — more calculated mid-tier acquisitions than any major splashes. Maybe they turn this downturn of impressing the fans in the summer to still playing games in the middle of winter.

What is your confidence level in the offensive line?

I used to say the Bengals don’t need the 1988 offensive line to protect Burrow for the offense to thrive. As the years go on, I’m confident the 1988 Bengals’ offensive line could go out there in front of Burrow and Bengals fans would still vote three as their level of confidence. There’s just too much scar tissue from the early Burrow years and too much fear of injury to ever feel great about the state of the starting five. That said, for the second straight year this looks like the best offensive line to play in front of Burrow. Add in the potential of Amarius Mims on the outside and the Bengals have done a solid job keeping professional protection in front of the franchise quarterback. These results should probably be higher, but given the recent history, I understand the reaction.

The question that hovers over the franchise’s future also makes the fan base nervous. As it should. When Burrow has played a full season, the Bengals have reached at least the AFC Championship Game. Twice he hasn’t survived and they missed the playoffs.

Yes, Bengals fans are nervous, but the majority opinion here represents the proper one, from my view. Burrow has endured myriad health issues, but there’s no denying he’s handled it correctly. He’s added strength. He’s changed his mindset in dealing with coaches, trainers and himself regarding injuries. He no longer views himself as the third-string quarterback at Ohio State who needs to prove his worth every second. He recognized the only doubt about him involves availability and finding perspective in completing the season has been the biggest change in his approach.

GO DEEPER

Joe Burrow’s offseason everything Bengals could have wanted

What else can you ask for? If another major and/or fluke injury occurs this year, the results to this question should change dramatically. That’s no doubt a scary thought for those filling out this survey. But for now, cautious optimism expressed by the majority feels right.

The topic of the offseason has come to a conclusion with the Bengals placing the franchise tag on Higgins, him signing it despite requesting a trade and all signs pointing to a normal training camp after missing the offseason program. Still, Cincinnati is on the hook for $21.9 million for one year of Higgins and the stage is set for him to walk in free agency next March. Did they handle this the right way? Well, nearly 80 percent of fans think they did. That’s not a bad hit rate considering the numerous paths the team could have taken. Of course, the results might have been different if Higgins hadn’t signed the tag and this distraction hovered over the start of the season. We’ll see if Cincinnati ends up with more than just a third-round compensatory pick as they did with Jessie Bates in a similar situation, as the possibility of a tag-and-trade still exists for next year.

The interesting takeaway for me is how much of the fan base appeared to side with ownership on this one in failing to pay one of the club’s premier players. With that said …

Besides Joe Burrow, who is your favorite player?

First, note to my 2025 self: You really need to take Ja’Marr Chase’s name off this list. Second, the movement on two names among fan favorites are striking. First, Trey Hendrickson made a huge jump up the board after his 17.5 sack season, which he followed with an ill-received contract demand and trade request. Then there’s Higgins, who went through his own contractual kerfuffle with the club, yet he dropped down to just 3.4 percent. That’s wild to see those two names go in dramatically different directions.

Coming off two consecutive years where one player was a runaway winner in this category (La’el Collins 73.5 percent, Orlando Brown 86.3 percent), the results were spread fairly evenly across the options. That’s a tip to the mid-tier approach the Bengals returned to this past March and probably bodes well for results to be better than the mixed bag of the last two free-agent classes.

The Jermaine Burton hype train just keeps chugging along. On The Growler Podcast, PFF’s Steve Palazzolo called Burton one of his favorite picks of the entire draft and the fourth-best receiver in the class for him. Bengals staff might agree and will be tasked with managing the off-field concerns that tanked the draft stock of a perceived first-round talent. For now, Bengals fans are buying. Impact for receiver will always get more attention than the trenches, but I’d be hard-pressed to pick anybody but Kris Jenkins. He feels like a critical piece of a position group with age and attention all over it with DJ Reader now in Detroit. The Bengals desperately need Jenkins to make an impact and will give him every opportunity to make one early.

Who do you view as the Bengals’ most bitter rival right now?

The Bengals lost to every team on this list last season, so there’s no debating whether fuel was added to the fire across the list. This year, however, the rise of the Ravens drew the ire of fans more than any other group. Maybe it was the vision of Burrow being unable to throw on the sideline of Thursday Night Football at M&T Bank Stadium that made the blood boil or the conjecture surrounding Logan Wilson’s tackle of Mark Andrews, but a switch flipped for fans against the Ravens last year. The Chiefs are still atop the rivalry mountain, but it momentum is growing for the AFC North to return to the top.

(Photo: Katie Stratman / USA Today)