Cincinnati Bengals Lose AFC Championship to Kansas City but Social Media Loves 'Jabroni-Gate'

BY ALLISON BABKA

It wasn’t the outcome that Cincinnati wanted. But it was the outcome that capped o another season of improvement, pride and hope.

e Cincinnati Bengals lost the AFC championship to the Kansas City Chiefs 23-20 on Jan. 29 at KC’s Arrowhead Stadium. As they did during the championship game in 2022 – also against the Chiefs – the Bengals rallied from behind to tie things up in the second half. But unlike last season, there was no overtime magic or last-second eld goal that would lead Cincinnati to a second Super Bowl appearance in as many years.

Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and company had both the o ense and defense going against the Bengals, capitalizing on a series of mistakes made by Cincinnati. Over the course of the game, quarterback Joe Burrow was sacked ve times and the team committed nine penalties worth 71 yards.

e team is proud of the season, though, and already is looking ahead.

“I feel very good about the direction that we’re headed in,” Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow told reporters after the game. “We’ve been in this game for two straight years. We have won one and lost one. Obviously, this one hurts but we will come back stronger.”

Head coach Zac Taylor also praised his scrappy team.

“I am just proud of this team. I am proud of the character of these men, and this is where character is going to be tested the most in moments like this when it is fresh,” Taylor told reporters. “You were so close to winning an AFC championship backto-back and going to the Super Bowl on the road. ere have been a lot of obstacles thrown at this team, and they knocked them all down. We just couldn’t get past this last one here.”

Despite being dismissed at the beginning of the season even after 2022’s Super Bowl journey, the Bengals continued to prove that they belong in the same conversations as the perpetual top teams. How could they not, with a 12-4 regular-season record and a 10-game winning streak that until Jan. 29 dated back to the beginning of November?

“We’re building a legacy,” wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase said.

Social media sizzle

Cincinnati’s pro football team already has a devoted fanbase in the Queen City, but the rest of the world apparently is catching on, too.

According to a recent study from Gambling.com, the Cincinnati Bengals are the fourth-most popular NFL team on TikTok, with an average of 111,790 follower likes for each video posted. At the time of the study, the Bengals had 1,600,000 followers and 25,600,000 likes across 229 videos. e team earns about $1,497 per video, the study showed.

e Detroit Lions, Bu alo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs took the top three spots in average likes per TikTok video. e Chiefs had the most followers of any NFL team with 2,500,000, the study said. KC also led in total likes (43,500,000) and earnings per video ($2,401).

But social media isn’t always pretty for sports teams. A post-AFC interview sent all social media platforms – particularly Twitter – a ame and pushed people to Google “What’s a ‘jabroni?’”

Holding up the AFC championship trophy during an on- eld interview after the game, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce shared some thoughts about Cincinnati mayor Aftab Pureval’s recent jabs at Kelce’s team and city.

“Hey, I’ve got some wise words for that Cincinnati mayor: Know your role and shut your mouth, you jabroni,” Kelce shouted on the NFL’s national CBS broadcast before invoking the Beastie Boys. “You gotta ght... for your right... to PARRRRRRRRRTYYYYYYY!

Kelce was referring to Pureval hyping Cincinnati during the week prior by calling Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium “Burrowhead Stadium” (Burrow had won his previous three contests against the Chiefs) and tossing some friendly digs at KC mayor Quinton Lucas (“ e mayor could use some Cincinnati swagger because the clothing he bet me was really quite tired,” Pureval said during a Bengals ag-raising ceremony). Pureval also essentially said “Joe Burrow is Kansas City’s daddy” in a video proclamation.

“Jabroni” largely is viewed as a variation of Italian-American slang that has been around since the start of the 20th century but had decreased in use since mid-century. According to dictionary.com, a jabroni is a “stupid, foolish, or contemptible person” or a “loser” and could be a derivative of the Milanese word for ham, giambone

But it was professional wrestling that pushed the term back into the spotlight. Wrestler Iron Sheik (born Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri) frequently called his opponents “jabroni” in the 1980s. In the 2000s, e Rock (Dwayne Johnson) popularized the term even more. Dictionary.com added the word to its archives in 2020.

After “jabroni” began trending on Twitter, Pureval shared a response.

“Yeah. Deserved that,” Pureval wrote around midnight after the game. “Congrats to KC on a well-fought win, and good luck in Arizona. Proud of our fans and our @bengals for all the energy this year. Who Dey!”