The Cincinnati Bengals haven’t had a national presence in a long time and the lack of primetime games each season has become something of a joke amongst fans.
That has left NBC playing catchup ahead of Super Bowl LVI when the Bengals take on the Los Angeles Rams.
Bengals wideout Tyler Boyd revealed that the entire team had to do a full-blown photo shoot with NBC because they weren’t on Sunday Night Football or Monday Night Football this year.
Boyd added this, per Paul Dehner Jr. of The Athletic: “We always got the 1 o’clock games and we got to prove ourselves to get on the big stage, that’s what we done.”
Granted, the presence of entirely redesigned jerseys and a totally revamped roster compared to roughly two seasons ago probably played a part, too.
Still, one doesn’t have to look far to find jokes about the Super Bowl getting moved to a 1 p.m. start time because the Bengals never get primetime attention — they had just one primetime game this year and two non-1.p.m. ET starts all season before the playoffs.
After a trio of playoff wins and a Super Bowl berth, nobody will overlook the Bengals next year.
