Welcome back to The Jungle. Come in. Stand up. Get reacquainted with what winning looks like. It has been 13 years. Pick your hearts up off the floor. Slide them beneath the Bengals jersey you haven't worn in public since Boomer Esiason.

Feel good. It has been so long.

"It's beautiful around here," said Chad Johnson. Who else? "Nothing bad you can say anymore."

The Bengals beat the 9-0 Kansas City Chiefs 24-19 with a performance straight out of 1988. "Outcoached and outplayed" was K.C. coach Dick Vermeil's read on it.

When you play 9-0 and beat them, all assumptions change, all images realign, all perceptions are dated. Thirteen years is a lot of image to shake. Beat 9-0 - dominate them, actually, for three-plus quarters - and your extended duty tour as League Laugh Track is officially finished. Nothing bad to say.

PHOTO GALLERY

Photos of Sunday's game

The Bengals are in first place after 11 weeks and 10 games. They're leading the AFC North and every TV and radio show in NFL Nation. You could have dreamed this in the last 13 years. Until the alarm went off.

"I kept the faith," Artrell Hawkins said. "I came back when I could have left. People called me crazy. We did today what people deemed impossible. We're not supermen. We're just 5-and-5. Still, this is probably the biggest game I've ever won."

If you don't think 5-5 is reason for elation, you haven't been here long. "Good things come to those who wait," Brian Simmons said.

And to those who play defense. When did Vermeil fax his offensive game plan to Cincinnati? For 54 minutes, the Kansas City Chiefs scored as many touchdowns as the Kansas City Royals. The league's best offense looked like it was dancing in the dark, and every few feet there was a wall

The Chiefs offense didn't stink it up. Their attack didn't break its legs with holding penalties or turnovers. It was Cincinnati's defense, the front seven especially. QB Trent Green looked bothered all day. Green couldn't set his feet, didn't have time to wait for receivers to clear, got no lift from tailback and erstwhile Bengal killer Priest Holmes and generally looked like a man running from the authorities.

"He never looked comfortable," Hawkins said. "Once the quarterback gets happy feet, it's a good day for the defense."

The Bengals got 165 more yards from Rudi Johnson, including a 54-yard rumble late in the fourth quarter that amounted to the final gut-punch. There is no way now that heavy-duty Rudi should not get 20 to 25 totes a game.

Ahead 17-12 and hanging on, the Bengals ordered an audacious bomb to Peter Warrick that became a 77-yard TD. Offensive coordinator Bob Bratkowski made the call. Lewis, whose idea of wide-open offense is a pass on second-and-10, said he didn't look up until the ball was in the air, "and that was a good thing."

K.C. saw a lot of Warrick's back in the second half. Before the bomb, he'd returned a punt 68 yards for a score. "It wasn't Dante Hall" on Sunday, Warrick said, referring to K.C.'s all-world return man. "It was P-Dub."

After three years of being P-Dubious, Warrick is starting to shine. It makes him a lot like his teammates.

It's safe, finally, to put your heart on the table again. It's OK to come out and play.

"It gives legitimacy to everything" was how Lewis put it. Beat 9-and-0, be taken seriously. "From the time we started, we said we were bringing the NFL back here. That was NFL football out there today," said Lewis.

Allow Chad Johnson the final word. You knew he'd get it, anyway. (By the way, Grandmaster Quote's guarantee really fired up the Chiefs, didn't it?) "It's not the same around here anymore," he said. "It's fun."

You remember fun. Sunday, you might have actually had some. After 13 years, you've got some catching up to do.

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E-mail pdaugherty@enquirer.com

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