Bass: Waiting for Roger Goodell, officials to hose Bengals, Saints again?

A new Bengals season is about to start, and you are stuck on how the last one ended. That penalty call on Logan Wilson? OUTRAGEOUS! The officials GAVE the Rams the Super Bowl. That was no accident. What will Roger Goodell and his officials do to us next time?

Arlene Schneider knows the feeling.

Three years earlier, the officials GAVE the Rams the NFC Championship Game over her Saints. How could anyone miss that pass interference? Typical Roger Goodell and the officials hosing the Saints. What will they do to us next time?

Arlene is smart, and she is caring. The Louisiana native earned her master’s degree in clinical social work from LSU, runs a coaching business in Houston and now loves her Saints from afar, but her joy died hard Jan. 20, 2019.

After “The No-Call,” she watched every game the next season, and into the following one, waiting for Goodell or the officials to hose the Saints – again. Arlene and Who Dat Nation KNOW the commissioner has had it in for the Saints since the alleged “Bountygate,” when Goodell tried to suspend four players and was overturned on appeal, but still banned coach Sean Payton for a year.

The No-Call hijacked a Super Bowl trip from the Saints and proved traumatic for Arlene, triggering the common and powerful fan equivalent of PTSD. Instead of trusting every game would be called fairly, she waited for the other shoe or an unfair flag to drop. If there really was a conspiracy, at least The No-Call would make sense to her, but how could she have any faith in incompetence?

Bengals columnWith Joe Burrow back, the Bengals' defense can start having some fun

She tired of feeling this way. Arlene wanted a new perspective. We worked together to help her find one.

********

Arlene says she is not one to scream or throw a tantrum when watching a Saints game at home. She might commiserate with Who Dat Nation on social media, feel the community outrage, but internalize her anger.

This is personal. She identifies with the Saints and their fans. She feels connected to a village with a deep understanding of its villagers, and this one is convinced the Saints are getting hosed. Sound familiar? Feeling hosed is part of every team’s lore and bonds its fans. Someone blew it for us. A coach. A player. The officials. The commish. The gods. Nobody has it worse than we do.

“I like that,” Arlene says, “that this is part of being a fan of any team.”

Bengals NFL‘Just another speed bump in the way’: Joe Burrow discusses plan to regain full strength

You want no-calls? Vikings fans can’t get over the missed interference by Cowboys receiver Drew Pearson in the 1975 playoffs – on a pass that spawned the term “Hail Mary” – or that the Bountygate Saints unfairly battered Brett Favre and cheated Minnesota out of a Super Bowl. That is the way Vikings fans see it.

You want hosing with officials? Rams fans petitioned the NFL to remove referee Bill Vinovich before an NFC title game because their team was 0-8 with him since 2012 – AND penalized more yardage than the opponents in seven of those, equal yardage once. No luck. Vinovich did work the game. It was the one with THE No-Call.

Rams fans will insist the officials also missed a Saints facemask penalty on L.A.’s previous drive in that game, but nobody cares now. Arlene is surprised to hear officials get about 99 percent of calls right in a typical game, according to the league, but that does not ease the sting of the one they missed. The pain is real. Trauma is real.

She forgot that the Saints still could have stopped L.A. from driving to a game-tying field goal before overtime, when the Rams intercepted a Drew Brees pass and kicked the winning field goal. Trauma can blur memories.

Bengals NFLLa'el Collins misses Bengals' practice Wednesday because of personal matter

Arlene now sees that the Saints had opportunities to overcome adversity, even with the officials’ blunder. She does not expect perfection from her children or clients; what if she extends that to officials? Football, like life, can be unfair; how does she choose to respond? She is expanding her view while still honoring her trauma as real.

Football also is fun, and Arlene used to love all that went along with Saints football, and she wants to tap into that again. If she feels herself getting stressed over the Saints, she can take a deep breath, remember mistakes will happen and avoid getting sucked into the Twitter-nado.

She likes her new strategy. It is authentic. She is ready.

********

We meet again two weeks later.

Arlene had prepared mentally before the games. The first test was easy, a rout over the Buccaneers. The next was ugly, a comeback win over the 49ers that left Brees with broken ribs and a collapsed lung, two teammates with concussions, and Arlene with flashbacks to the 2012 Saints-49ers playoff game when Saints running back

Pierre Thomas was knocked out and Alex Smith led San Francisco to a winning TD in the closing seconds.

This time?

Bengals NFLBengals great Ken Riley named a senior committee nominee for 2023 Pro Football HOF class

She backed way off Twitter, except for news updates from media. “I didn’t miss it,” she says. She talked to her niece. She appreciated that her husband was handling the game well, too. She let go of waiting for something bad to happen. She enjoyed this way better.

Afterward?

“I watched ‘Law and Order’ instead of ‘RedZone or postgame interviews to calm me down and not allow myself to self-sabotage,” she said.

Which gave her food for thought.

“I could eat after the game,” Arlene says. “Normally I can’t eat after a game. I get too hyped or upset.”

Her strategy had worked.

“I didn’t think I could have a different perspective and still be passionate,” she says. “Being able to still be passionate and in love with the Saints and not be depressed or let it affect my week when something bad happens, it’s really been life-changing.”

Arlene is empowered. She will try other strategies, too. Living only in The No-Call had seemed like a required burden for Saints fandom, but now she also can choose to live in the moment.

“I really thought this was a lost cause,” she says, “a feeling I could not ever resolve.”

********

You don’t have to use Arlene’s strategy. You don’t have to do anything. But if you are tired of the Logan Wilson penalty dragging you down, you can focus on what you enjoy about Bengals football and look beyond that play.

Would it help to remember the officials missed a facemask penalty on the Bengals’ Tee Higgins, earlier in the game? Or that Raiders fans might never get over the Bengals scoring after the whistle, earlier in the playoffs?

Would it help to remember that the Bengals did not take advantage of a chance to win the Super Bowl in the end? That Ja’Marr Chase looked open for a game-winning TD on their last play, had the line finally kept Aaron Donald from pressuring Joe Burrow? And that Joe Mixon was not used on the last two plays?

OK, that last one still might haunt you, too. This will all be part of Bengals lore. It hurts now. It might always hurt. Time might help. So could a Super Bowl return.

The Saints did not return to the Super Bowl. They missed the playoffs last season. We will check back with Arlene to she how she is handling it. And you?

All you have with the Bengals is right now.

How do you want to see them?

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: What will Roger Goodell do to the Bengals this season? Column