Juicing up the Jungle

The season of 2003 was one of rejuvenation for the Cincinnati Bengals. With the arrival of Marvin Lewis, the good people of the Queen City felt something towards their team they hadn’t in years: hope. With top pick Carson Palmer waiting in the wings, the supplanting of sourpuss Corey Dillon with hardworking, fan-favorite Rudi Johnson, and a breakout year from WR Chad Johnson, the fans truly believed that the team was on the cusp of becoming relevant again. Hell, even Jon Kitna went from looking like a drunken darts player to an above-mediocre quarterback. All these dynamics played into the rebirth of a once-proud Riverfront establishment: “The Jungle.”

Back in the late ‘80s, Riverfront Stadium was host to one of the more boisterous and energetic crowds in football, and with good reason: the Who-Deys flaunted a rushing attack combo of HB James Brooks/FB Icky Woods with Pro Bowl lineman Anthony Munoz and Max Montoya bulldozing the trail; an air assault guided by league MVP QB Boomer Esiason and featuring the receiving trio of Eddie Brown, Rodney Holman, and Tim McGee; and stars Tim Krumrie and David Fulcher laying down the law on D. During this period of tiger-striped supremacy, the rock band Guns ‘n Roses were taking the music world by force with the hit, “Welcome to the Jungle.” The crack-staff marketing department for the team realized the correlation, and soon the song was the unofficial Bengals’ entrance music, as well as being played between crucial downs to get the crowd rockin’. And rock they did. Browns QB Bernie Kosar once called Riverfront the loudest opposing stadium he’d ever played in. It was almost the perfect storm: a Super Bowl-bound team, one of the all-time rock/sports anthem classics, and a blue-collar city that took pride in being the 12th man. Hence, “the Jungle” was born.

Unfortunately, the good times in Riverfront were fleeting. After 1990, the team went into a little bit of a slump (14 years to be exact). All the things that made the Jungle a house of reckoning were quite wrecked themselves: Icky Woods was soon out of football and selling meat out of his trunk; Boomer became a pompous, holier-than-thou studio-analyst; Guns ‘n Roses split; even the stadium name was sold off to Cinergy, in the process diminishing any of the aura that was left from it’s heyday. Games were no longer sold out, hence blacking-out home contests in the tri-state area. The turn of the century brought a new stadium, but the team still lost more than the Washington Generals. However, with the arrival of Lewis and subsequent revival of the franchise, the fans soon returned, and in greater numbers than ever before. On Nov. 16, 2003, against the then-unbeaten Kansas City Chiefs, Lewis’s squad shutdown a juggernaut offense led by Trent Green and Priest Holmes. It was official: The Jungle was back.

Which leads us to today’s main point of the article: With a divine nickname such as “The Jungle,” when is the team going to pony up and deck PBS out? While football stadiums don’t have as much artistic freedom as ballparks, Paul Brown Stadium is one of the dullest and lifeless fields in the NFL. Besides the endzone and mid-field drawings, you wouldn’t be able to tell what team called the stadium home. (Well, besides those Wal-Mart-quality banners they put up around the padding of the field that probably set the team back a cool $300.) Keeping that in mind, here are some suggestions to give “The Jungle” a little more flavor.

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1) Ditch the green seats. Sure, green’s easy on the eyes and aesthetically the safe play, with many saying that orange chairs would be too bright. But as much as I hate to say it, Pittsburgh’s (yellow) and Cleveland’s (puke-colored) bleachers give the stadiums a nice touch. Moreover, old Mile High used to rock the orange seats, and Dolphin Stadium still does. Plus, have you seen Cincinnati’s riverfront lately? I’m sure that prime-time real estate that’s currently blacktop is still more of an eyesore than orange seats.

2) Embrace and embellish the past. Alright, so the team doesn’t exactly have the richest history in football. Still, that doesn’t mean you treat it like the crying baby in church and ignore it all-together. Drape some banners inside the stadium, commemorating the Super Bowl teams, or even division championships. Anthony Munoz is arguably the best offensive lineman to ever play the game, as well an astonishing ambassador for the team and NFL. The man needs some sort of enshrinement at PBS; maybe throw up a statue in his honor, or at minimum hang his jersey on one of the concrete facades. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to take a page from the Green Bay/Dallas playbook and string up some Bengal legends’ names and numbers around the park. Speaking of duplication, the team should look down the street at GABP and erect a Hall of Fame that’s open to the public. Again, the franchise is sort of lacking in affluent history, but maybe it could be a pseudo-museum: jerseys of all the failed 1 st round draft picks, an exhibit celebrating Peter Warrick’s achievement for being the first receiver to have a negative YAC average, and an interactive demonstration from Scott Mitchell on the art of throwing wobbly passes.

3) Keep the cheesy padding-banners. Okay, I’ll admit it; those are kind of sweet.

4) Invest around the stadium. This is the hardest, and maybe even far-fetched, idea to implement in sprucing up the atmosphere. But other parks/stadiums have helped vitalized surrounding neighborhoods before. One of the reasons Wrigley Field is a unique experience is because of Wrigleyville, consisting of bars and shops encircling the ballpark. It gives the people a place to congregate before and after games, almost building camaraderie between the fans. Obviously, the Bengals can’t do much around the East side of the stadium thanks to the Banks project. But why not try to promote turning some of the car lots on the west side into this sort of atmosphere? Sure, it kills off valuable parking, and some would argue that the tailgating scene already encourages this type of environment. However, why not have both? Moving some parking/tailgating across the river and further past Longworth Hall wouldn’t be the end of the world. And if the Bengals aren’t able to grease enough politicians or local businessmen to make this happen, why don’t they buy some of the surrounding area themselves? In case we forget, the stadium was erected for them at the expense of the taxpayers; this could be a way of showing their appreciation and gratitude.

While it’s very unfeasible that any of these suggestions will be put to use (considering Mike Brown is a notorious penny-pincher), it’s at least food for thought. For better or worse, many people identify their city with their sports teams; consequently, we distinguish other cities in this manner. The fans and players deserve an environment worthy enough of “The Jungle” persona, something the city of Cincinnati can be proud of. It’s about time we gave it to them.

By Joel Beall
ProFootball-fans.com Cincinnati Bengals Correspondent