In the weeks leading up to training camp, we will take a look back at a few of the most pivotal seasons in Bengals history. The 1981 season featured the team’s first playoff win, the “Freezer Bowl” and the franchise’s first Super Bowl appearance.<\/p>\n
\n Season Summary<\/p>\n
A season that began with the unveiling of the now iconic Bengals-striped helmets ended in Cincinnati’s first trip to the Super Bowl. Coming off a 6-10 season in 1980 under first-year head coach Forrest Gregg, the Bengals made a jump from worst to first in the 1981 AFC Central.<\/p>\n
Led by league MVP Ken Anderson, the Bengals finished 12-4 and won the AFC Central for the third time. Cincinnati started the season 5-3 before winning seven of their last eight games, including five in a row.<\/p>\n
Anderson posted a league-best 98.4 quarterback rating en route to his Most Valuable Player award, leading a Bengals offense that jumped from 15.3 points per game in 1980 (27th in the league) to 26.3 points per game in 1981 (third). Rookie receiver Cris Collinsworth, a second-round pick out of the University of Florida, hauled in 67 receptions for 1,009 yards and eight touchdowns, while TE Dan Ross caught a then-club record 71 passes. FB Pete Johnson led the rushing attack: He set a then-club record in rushing yards with 1,077 and scored 12 touchdowns.<\/p>\n
Cincinnati hosted the Buffalo Bills in the Divisional Round of the playoffs, their first-ever home postseason contest. The Bengals won their first playoff game in franchise history, beating the Bills 28-21. Anderson hit Collinsworth for a 16-yard touchdown early in the fourth quarter to break the 21-21 tie, and the Cincinnati defense came up with a late stop to clinch the victory. Anderson completed 66% of his passes for 192 yards in the game, while HB Charles Alexander ran in two touchdowns and compiled a season-high 72 rushing yards.<\/p>\n
The Bengals then hosted the San Diego Chargers in the AFC Championship, a game that would come to be known as “The Freezer Bowl.” The coldest wind chill game in NFL history, the 1981 AFC title bout was played in frigid -9-degree weather with a -59-degree wind chill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the weeks leading up to training camp, we will take a look back at a few of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2053],"tags":[228,443,227,256,2296,7,4463,81,898,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-173213","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cincinnati-bengals","8":"tag-bengals","9":"tag-centerpiece","10":"tag-cincinnati","11":"tag-cincinnati-bengals","12":"tag-cincinnatibengals","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-history","15":"tag-latest-news","16":"tag-latest-stories","17":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114778567251300757","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}