Are you rooting for the Cincinnati Bengals?

Are you pulling for them to beat the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday and win the AFC championship for the second straight year, and the fourth time overall?

And if they do that, then would you root for them to go on and win the Super Bowl for the first time?

If this were instead the Pittsburgh Steelers, I’m guessing  — and I would be right — that you would not be rooting for them.

Likewise, if this were Baltimore Ravens, I’m guessing — and I would be right again — that you would also not be rooting for them.

Both are the Browns’ hated AFC North rivals. A lot of you would not even root for them to beat a team of players from the Taliban.

But while the Bengals are division rivals, too, they are not hated.

The Bengals are from Ohio. Their colors are almost the same as those of the Browns. They were started by the same man, Paul Brown, who, in essence, started the Browns. His son, Mike, who owns and operates the Bengals, went to Shaker Heights High School and idolized the players from those early Browns teams.

The “Battle of Ohio” games between the Bengals and Browns, held twice a year every year for the last 50 years, were once fierce, but they have become more like the NFL’s version of a “friendly.”

If Cincinnati was playing the Browns on Sunday — wouldn’t that be something? — then, of course, you wouldn’t be rooting for the Bengals. But the opponent is the Chiefs, who have few connections to the Browns or Northeast Ohio.

So, considering all that, then, “Go Bengals!,” right?

Steve King