Ten or twelve years ago, I had a friend named Jeremy who wore a Syrcause hat every day. That March, the Syracuse Orangemen were ranked a two-seed, and in the first round of the tournament they faced the 15-seed Richmond Spiders.
I told everyone they were going to watch the Spiders win. Especially my friend Jeremy. If memory serves, he gave me the finger. "Watch," I said.
That night the Spiders could not miss from behind the arc, and the next morning I arrived triumphant.
Click forward two years, when my dad and I head down to Cincinnati for the 9th game of the season against the Browns. The Bengals at this point are 0-8. The stands are two-thirds empty. But for some reason I believed they were going to win.
And they did, by a field goal as time ran out. I can still hear the sportscasters at WLW freaking out on the radio like someone everyone knew and loved had just had a healthy baby.
Now click forward a decade to the present. A kind of certainty has again settled over my mind.
The Cincinnati Bengals, beloved losers of my birthplace, are 4-5. They play the NFL's only undefeated team, the Chiefs, on Sunday. And they are going to win.
Nevermind that after winning Sunday they will likely slip below .500 the next weekend. Sequential weekends of success are not the Bengal way.
But Sunday? Sunday the Bengals win.
