Bengals fans will remember Andy Dalton forever. This week? Panthers QB ‘makes me nervous’

Jordan Smith can’t help but shed a wry smile.

It’s approaching the end of the third quarter of the Commanders-Bengals Monday Night Football game — one that has put the Charlotte resident since 2010 and the Bengals fan for life in a bit of a bind.

On the one hand, it’s a lovely night at Protagonist in South End, the newly minted Bengals bar in Charlotte. On the other, this game has been one long slog for Smith, who’s been busy trying to will his Cincinnati team out of the deficit it made for itself in the first half.

And on top of all that, there’s a reporter asking him about Andy Dalton.

Smith, 38, is clearly thrilled with the whole scene.

“I mean, the year that Andy broke his thumb, I thought we were going to the Super Bowl that year,” Smith says, reminiscing on that almost-magical 2015 season while keeping his eyes locked on the outdoor TV.

Smith is then reminded of the season debut Dalton had with the Carolina Panthers — an outing that saw the 36-year-old quarterback throw for 319 yards and three touchdowns en route to a convincing Week 3 win over the Raiders. And then Smith is reminded that his Bengals play Dalton — the beloved Cincinnati QB from 2011 to 2019 — and the Panthers next week.

Again: thrilled.

“That makes me nervous for next week,” Smith said. He acknowledges it all with a friendly but terse grin; Smith plans to be in Bank of America Stadium on Sunday, much like a bunch of Bengals fans in Charlotte do. “The first game is always like, ‘Ah, it’s a new quarterback.’ But it does make me a little nervous.

“He knows the Bengals. He knows our tendencies.”

It’s true.

When the Panthers (1-2) host the Bengals (0-3) in Bank of America Stadium at 1 p.m. Sunday, it’ll mean a lot of things to a bunch of different people. For Panthers fans, Sunday will mark the first home game in far too long where they’ll enter the Uptown stadium with some justifiable hope. For Dalton, Sunday will be his fourth time playing against the team that drafted him in 2011 and cheered him on for the bulk of a decade and then benched him in 2019.

For Bengals fans, though?

Particularly ones in Charlotte, who find themselves at this interesting crossroads?

Seeing Dalton will conjure some “bittersweet” thoughts.

And maybe even some mild fear.

“After the Panthers’ win, and the way the Bengals are playing right now, I mean, I’m scared,” said McKenzie Ali, a 24-year-old lifelong Bengals fan who moved to Charlotte six months ago.

He laughed: “I don’t want to see Andy beat us. But I love seeing Andy do well.”

Andy Dalton, for what it’s worth, is good in revenge games

Other fans seem to feel the same way as Smith and Ali — both for their appreciation for what Dalton did in Cincinnati, as well as for their general nervousness heading into Week 4.

After all, for what it’s worth, Dalton is pretty good in revenge games.

According to StatsMuse, Dalton is 2-1 against the Bengals. With the Cowboys, Dalton completed 16 of 23 passes for 185 yards and two touchdowns en route to a win. He won again, too, when he was with Chicago, going 9 of 11 for 56 yards and a score. His one loss came when he was with the Saints in 2022 — and he still had a completion percentage above 50% and threw for 162 yards and a score. He hasn’t thrown a pick against his old team.

This isn’t to say that his masterful performance last week will be replicated. Dalton, the gunslinging veteran who stepped in for Bryce Young on Sunday after the second-year quarterback was benched, even warned against that after the win: “They’re not all going to go like this,” he said. “When they do, you’ve got to enjoy that.”

Ask fans of their favorite Dalton memories, and a bunch will crop up. Ali said that what he remembers most is the legendary Dalton-AJ Green connection, one of the most lethal QB-WR connections in NFL history. Eric Sahli, a 26-year-old fan from Columbus, remembers Dalton getting his favorite team to the playoffs with consistency — even if those runs never yielded a playoff win. Erin Weitner, a 22-year-old from Cincinnati, said she loves being able to enjoy Dalton’s success in Charlotte and doesn’t feel a hint of jealousy: “We have Joe Burrow now, so we’re OK.”

Ask someone who was there at the peak of Dalton’s powers, too — who experienced the fan love alongside him — and he’ll say similar things.

“I don’t think they’ll ever forget that,” Tyler Boyd, one of Dalton’s favorite targets in Cincinnati through the mid-2000s, said of Bengals fans.

And if anyone would know that, it would be Boyd. After all, the current Titans receiver was on the receiving end of one of the most famous catches in Bengals history — the fourth-and-12 touchdown grab against the Baltimore Ravens on New Year’s Eve in 2017.

“They’ll always respect him,” Boyd said.

So if you’re at Protagonist at all this weekend, expect a party. And if you’re in Bank of America Stadium on Sunday, expect to see an orange and black 14 jersey or two — or at minimum a bunch of Bengals fans with mixed feelings. You can thank Dalton’s long tenure in Cincinnati for that.

“I was hoping the tickets were going to be really cheap,” Sahli said. “But then the Panthers won. So we’ll see.”

You can thank Dalton for that, too.