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This article details the history of the Cincinnati Bengals American football club. ==Origins== In 1967 a Cincinnati-based ownership group led by Paul Brown was granted a franchise in the American Football League. As the founder and head coach of the Cleveland Browns from 1946 to 1962, Brown led his team to a .759 winning percentage and seven championships, which includes four championships earned while a member of the All-America Football Conference. The Browns were champions of that league in each of the four years it existed. When the AAFC folded after the 1949 season, the Browns, as well as the San Francisco 49ers and the first incarnation of the Baltimore Colts, were absorbed into the National Football League. Brown became a recognized innovator for his approach to training, game planning, and the passing game. However, Brown sold majority interest in the team in 1961 to businessman Art Modell. On January 9, 1963, Modell controversially fired Brown. Many believe that Modell had tired of complaints of Brown's autocratic style; others claim it was Brown's decision to trade for Syracuse University's Heisman Trophy-winning running back Ernie Davis, who was drafted by the Washington Redskins, without Modell's knowledge. However, tragically, Davis was diagnosed with leukemia shortly afterward. Brown didn't want to play Davis; Modell insisted he could play. The relationship between Paul Brown and Art Modell, which was never warm to begin with, deteriorated further. Davis died on May 18, 1963. By 1966, Paul Brown wanted to become involved in professional football again. James A. Rhodes, then the governor of Ohio, convinced Brown that Ohio needed a second team. Cincinnati was deemed the logical choice, in essence, splitting the state. Brown named the team the Bengals in order "to give it a link with past professional football in Cincinnati." () Another Bengals team existed in the city and played in a previous American Football League from 1937 to 1942. Possibly as an insult to Art Modell, Paul Brown chose the exact shade of orange used by his former team. He added black as the secondary color. Brown chose a very simple logo: the word "BENGALS" in black lettering. Ironically, one of the potential helmet designs Brown rejected was a striped motif that was similar to the one featuring the "varicose pumpkin" helmets adopted by the team in 1981 and which is still in use to this day; however, that design featured orange stripes on a black helmet which were more uniform in width. Brown had initially sought a franchise in the National Football League but had been rebuffed, in no small part because Cincinnati's largest football venue then in place, Nippert Stadium, was well under the minimum 50,000 capacity the league required for prospective expansion teams. A turning point came in 1966 when the American Football League agreed to a merger with its older and more established rival. Merger negotiations had been complicated by several factors, one being that members of the United States Congress were seeking guarantees that any merger would include all existing AFL teams. Under pressure from Congress, NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle had promised that professional football would be maintained in each of the twenty-three markets where it then existed. Of the then-nine AFL teams, only the New York Jets and Oakland Raiders shared their market with an NFL team. Both teams had struggled in the AFL's early years, but both had become stable under new ownership by 1966 and the AFL refused to consider contracting either franchise. From the NFL's perspective, a merger without contraction or expansion would have meant an odd number of teams in the expanded league (25), a less than desirable state of affairs for a professional football league primarily on account of scheduling considerations. With contraction off the table, the leagues' owners turned to the question of expansion. Because the NFL then had sixteen teams to the AFL's nine, and because it was then thought unlikely that any of the NFL owners would agree to join the AFL teams in any sort of divisional or conference alignment after the merger, the AFL was the logical choice to add the new team. From the AFL's perspective, adding another team was highly desirable because the guarantee of an eventual place in the NFL meant the league could charge a steep expansion fee of $10 million - 400 times the $25,000 the original eight owners paid when they founded the league in 1960. The cash from such a transaction provided the American Football League with the funds needed to pay the indemnities required to be paid by the AFL to the NFL, as stipulated by the merger agreement. The NFL agreed to this on the condition that the AFL teams alone provide players for the ensuing expansion draft, thereby ensuring that the consequential dilution of talent occurred in what the NFL owners had always considered to be an inferior league. Prior to the merger being announced, Paul Brown had not seriously considered joining the American Football League, and was not a supporter of what he openly regarded to be an inferior competition, once famously stating that "I didn't pay ten million dollars to be in the AFL." However, with the announcement of the merger, Brown realized that the AFL expansion franchise would likely be his only realistic path back into the NFL in the short to medium term. An additional consideration was that the AFL was willing to allow Cincinnati to play at Nippert Stadium for the team's two pre-merger seasons. Brown ultimately acquiesced to joining the AFL when after learning that the team was guaranteed to become an NFL franchise after the merger was competed in 1970, provided a larger stadium was completed by then. Ultimately, the stadium issue was settled in no small part because the Cincinnati Reds of Major League Baseball were also in need of a facility to replace the antiquated, obsolete Crosley Field, which they had used since 1912. Parking nightmares had plagued the city as far back as the 1950s, the little park lacked modern amenities, and New York City, which after 1957 had lost both their National League teams, the Dodgers and the Giants to Los Angeles and San Francisco, respectively, was actively courting Powel Crosley. However, Crosley was adamant that the Reds remain in Cincinnati and tolerated worsening problems with the Crosley Field location, which were increased with the Millcreek Expressway (I-75) project that ran alongside the park. With assistance from Ohio governor James A. Rhodes, Hamilton County and the Cincinnati city council agreed to build a single multi-purpose facility on the dilapidated riverfront section of the city. The new facility had to be ready by the opening of the 1970 NFL season and was officially named Riverfront Stadium, which was its working title. With the completion of the merger in 1970, the Cleveland Browns were moved to the AFL-based American Football Conference. Unexpected victories for AFL teams in Super Bowls III and IV had persuaded NFL owners, starting with Art Modell, to re-consider the question of divisional alignments and ultimately led to the Browns and Bengals both being placed in the AFC Central. An instant rivalry was born, fueled initially by Paul Brown's rivalry with Modell. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「History of the Cincinnati Bengals」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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