Cincinnati Bengals: Best quarterbacks in team history, No. 1
By Kenn Korb
We come to the conclusion of our countdown of the best Cincinnati Bengals quarterbacks in franchise history, ending with the top dog.
The Cincinnati Bengals and the rest of the NFL are in the dead part of the calendar in terms of goings-on. There is still a month until training camp, and NFL teams are drawing up plans behind closed doors at this point.
As we aren’t privy to that type of information right now though, that leaves time to examine things like the history of the Bengals franchise. As such, we’ve been doing so by looking at the best quarterbacks to ever play for Cincinnati.
And after looking through Nos. 5-2 already, it’s time to give someone the crown.
1. Ken Anderson
It isn’t always that your first long-term starter ends up being the best your franchise ever has. In Cincinnati’s case, that’s exactly what the reality is for the organization as we reach 50 years since their inception.
Anderson is not the first quarterback to ever take snaps for them, but it only took four seasons for the team to bring in the man who brought the team more success than any other signal caller they’ve ever had. His career started off ignominiously with an 0-4 record in 1971, but Anderson would go on to set the franchise’s record for wins — done so in a time when NFL seasons were only 14 games long, and including a strike-shortened 1982 year. Eight times, his team finished with a winning record; from 1972-77, Cincinnati had a winning record every season.
Anderson’s standing isn’t only built on the wins, either. Moreso than any of the quarterbacks who would follow him, he made a habit of leading the league in numerous statistics throughout his Cincinnati tenure. In his first full year as a starter (1972), Anderson led the league in interception percentage.
Two years later, he led the NFL in completions, completion percentage (64.9percent; second-place was 60.1 percent), passing yards, yards per attempt, and passer rating. In 1975, he was the only 3,000+ yard passer while also leading in yards per attempt and passer rating. 1981 saw him lead the league in touchdown percentage, interception percentage, and passer rating. 1982 saw him set the first 70+ completion percentage for a season — a record which would stand for 27 years untied, and 29 years unbroken.
Anderson also has this to add: he played better in the playoffs than any other quarterback on this list. He has played in more playoff games than any Cincinnati quarterback, and his performance blows away the rest of his competition on this list. His 66.3 completion percentage is far and away better than his counterparts (Dalton’s 55.7 is second). None of them come close to his 93.5 playoff passer rating. He has nearly 500 more passing yards than any of them. His nine touchdowns in six playoff games are more than what Esiason, Dalton, and Palmer combined for in nearly double the amount of games (11 games, six combined scores).
The cherry on top of Anderson’s claim for the top spot in these rankings is his Super Bowl run. In many ways it aligns with the run Esiason would later take this team on in 1988 — down to eventually losing a close game to San Francisco — but better. whereas Esiason struggled throughout his 1988 playoff run, Anderson shined.
He completed 65.2 percent of his passes with three touchdowns, no interceptions, and a 113.8 passer rating to get past Buffalo and San Diego. The Super Bowl saw Anderson make some untimely mistakes (namely two picks, including one with his team down 23-14 late in the fourth quarter), but he ended the game by completing nearly three-quarters of his passes, eclipsing 300 passing yards, scoring three touchdowns (two passing, one rushing), and managing a 95.2 passer rating despite his errors.
Next: NFL 2018: Each team's best offseason move
He never won the biggest prize, and on the biggest stage he made the mistakes which sealed his team’s fate, but while those moments ding what his legacy could have been he still accomplished sizably more than any Cincinnati quarterback has been able to in the decades since. Too often the talk of records and greatness gets trapped in the here and now; someone like Anderson shows that there are still plenty of aging gems worth remembering in these discussions.