The Cincinnati Bengals sound like a team about to be a major primetime fixture for an NFL trying to appease many different companies at once.
Those Bengals figure to get a handful of primetime games next year and in noteworthy comments from Pro Football Talk’s Peter King, their matchup with the Kansas City Chiefs will be a big part of the league’s strategy:
“One logical theory I heard last week: The NFL has a lot of network mouths to feed, and could use KC games versus the Eagles, Bills and Bengals as tentpole events for the NBC, CBS and ESPN schedules. Maybe Eagles-KC on an October Sunday night on NBC, Bengals-KC on a CBS doubleheader game in a November Sunday late-afternoon window, and Bills-KC as the highlight of the ESPN slate.”
We know the Bengals are a big-ticket item now and Chiefs-Bengals is one of the best rivalries in the league.
But it says much about how everyone views Joe Burrow’s team that they stand alongside both Super Bowl teams and the Bills as a major part of the strategy a league worth billions uses to keep partners happy.
This theory, for what it’s worth, would nix the idea of the Bengals being featured in the 2023 season kickoff on a Thursday night against the Chiefs.
