By Matt Papiernik, @Matt_Papiernik on Twitter
SteelerNation.com
Heading into Week 10, the Pittsburgh Steelers face one of their division rivals, the Cincinnati Bengals. On Monday, the Bengals Twitter account decided it would be a good idea to tweet a GIF of former Bengals wide receiver, T.J. Houshmandzaheh using the Terrible Towel to shine his cleats. The tweet can be seen below.
Steelers Week ???? pic.twitter.com/IKWEMIdump
— Cincinnati Bengals (@Bengals) November 10, 2020
Do the Bengals not remember what happened the last two times they disrespected the Terrible Towel? Let's go back in time for a quick history lesson.
The GIF that was tweeted out by the Bengals is from 2005 after a game where they beat the Steelers 38-31 in Pittsburgh. However, that turned out to be a poor decision in the long run.
Later that season, the Steelers eliminated the Bengals from the playoffs by defeating them in Cincinnati with a score of 31-17. The Steelers went on to win Super Bowl XL that season.
That sequence of events didn't teach the Bengals their lesson, however. They managed to make the same mistake in 2016 when former Bengals running back, Jeremy Hill decided it would be a good idea to rip a Terrible Towel in half and throw it on the ground after scoring a touchdown that put them up 17-3.
After Hill's poor judgement, the Steelers went on to outscore the Bengals 21-3 the rest of the way, winning the Week 15 matchup 24-20. This loss also eliminated the Bengals from playoff contention, effectively ending their season.
Now, this isn't a new instance of them disrespecting the Terrible Towel. However, I can't imagine the Bengals would want the same outcome it had in 2005 and 2016 when disrespecting the Terrible Towel, so this tweet seems like a very poor decision.
We will see this coming Sunday if it ends up hurting the Bengals. The Steelers are on one hell of a roll right now, and I don't think the Bengals wanted to add any fuel to the fire for this weekend.
Let us know below what you think of the Bengals decision on the GIF they tweeted out by commenting below!
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